Lewis brings fight to Falls
He won an Olympic gold medal, won the heavyweight title three times, and put Mike Tyson flat on his back.
The next challenge for boxing great Lennox Lewis? Putting pro boxing back in the Canadian spotlight. And Niagara Falls is a big part of the plan.
Lewis, the last undisputed heavyweight champion before retiring in 2004, is in town to push the Niagara Falls debut of Global Legacy Boxing, a promotion he started with friend and businessman Les Woods. The Friday night card at the Scotiabank Convention Centre features six matches, with Niagara Falls resident and former welterweight champion Phil Lo Greco squaring off against Mexico’s Jesus (The Panther) Gurrola in the main event.
Tourists gawked at the towering Lewis during a media weigh-in Thursday at Table Rock in front of the Canada 150 sign. As he signed autographs and posed for countless pictures, he said the sky’s the limit for professional boxing in Niagara Falls.
“It has all the attributes that it needs,” says Lewis, who was born in London, England and moved to Kitchener when he was 12. “Everyone always wants to come here, always enjoys coming here. (This is) offering them something else.
“Boxing is one thing that agrees with everybody.”
The inaugural event has already sold out at 1,000 tickets, and will be the first of four cards per year Lewis and Woods hope to bring to the Falls. It’s all about making boxing accessible to people again, says Lewis.
“Since I was boxing as a young kid, boxing ’s kind of diminished a little bit,” he says. “But it’s always going to be there. Man will always fight, so they might as well fight with the proper tools and make it classy.”
Representing Canada, Lewis fought in the 1984 Olympics as a super heavyweight, losing in the quarter finals to Tyrell Biggs of the U.S., who went on to win the gold medal.
Instead of turning pro, he stayed as an amateur for another shot at the gold medal in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. He defeated eventual world heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe in the second round to win the gold, and was Canada’s flag bearer at the closing ceremonies.
Lewis’ legendary pro career began in 1989. He won the European heavyweight the next year, the British heavyweight title in 1991, and beat Tony Tucker for the WBC heavyweight title in 1993.
After 25 straight wins, Lennox lost the WBC in a massive upset when he was knocked out in the second round to Oliver McCall in 1994. He avenged the loss three years later in a bizarre rematch in which McCall appeared to have a breakdown in the ring.
After a draw and unanimous decision victory over Evander Holyfield in 1999, Lewis suffered his only other pro loss in 2001 when he was knocked out by Hasim Rahman. He avenged it seven months later, knocking out Rahman in the fourth round.
Lewis is one of only three heavyweight champions to avenge every loss before retiring.
Lewis’ match against Mike Tyson in 2002 was the highest grossing pay-per-view in history at the time ($106.9 million), and saw Lewis KO the former champion with a thunderous right hand in the eighth round.
He would retire after his next match, a controversial TKO over Vitali Klitschko in 2003.
At six feet, five inches tall, Lewis is often ranked among the ten greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He’s also a “true gentleman,” says Woods.
“He’s one of the most passionate human beings I’ve ever met. He wants boxing back in its rightful place, and he wants to give back to Canada what he promised just after the (1988) Olympics, when he had to leave here as a young man and start his career back in Britain.
“He promised Canada he’d come back and build that (boxing) platform, and that’s what he’s doing right now.”
A former boxing analyst, Lewis is inevitably asked about the upcoming match between unbeaten welterweight great Roger Mayweather and UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. The Aug. 26 event in Las Vegas will earn each man upwards of $100 million, and will be a standard 12-round boxing match with 10-ounce gloves.
Lewis feels McGregor is out of his league.
“You’ve got one of the best fighters ever...no boxer’s ever figured him out. Now you’ve Conor McGregor. He’s got five different styles. He can get you on the ground, he can kick you in the head, he can submit you, he can choke you. Can he box? Only for a moment.
“I don’t think he has a shot, but I think it’s going to be entertaining.”