FOLLOW THE LEADER

Lennox Lewis tells John Dennen what the sport has taught him. He also has a thing or two to say about Ray Mercer...

Lennox Lewis, the last undisputed heavyweight champion, has his say

WHAT countries is the Lennox Lewis Foundation operating in, and what’s the kind of work you’re doing?

In Jamaica at the moment. It’s a foundation just for the youth. We actually want to teach them how to box plus do life skills. I’m talking about respect, violent conflict resolution. We speak about life, what it is to lose. How do you win. Setting goals. All different things and we integrate boxing in that as well. So we find that boxing is really a tough sport to learn but everybody can learn it. [People] from different backgrounds, big guys, small guys, skinny people, everybody has to learn boxing because it’s such a demanding sport. And learning that takes discipline. It takes respect. It takes all the things you need to make it in life.

So you teach them about how to lose?

You can lose in life. Certain things don’t go according to plan. So how do you recover from that? Recovering from a fight as well, it’s the same kind of thing.

In your career what was the most difficult loss to handle?

I think any loss is always difficult to handle. When I lost I realised how I lost and why I lost. Then I said, ‘let me go and correct that mistake and come back again.’ It’s like falling off a horse. Do you get on the horse again? Or it’s no, no, no more, I’m not going to ride the horse again? Get on the horse again.

So get on the horse again, you ride. You may be a better rider but you have to slip sometimes. The road to success is not always a straight road. There’s going to be potholes, there’s going to curves.

So failure and losing is part of being successful?

Yes. Which I’m going to talk about on September 6 [at his event ‘Undisputed’ at the O2]. We’re going to go through a couple of fights and speak about things that people didn’t realise what was happening in the fight. I’m going to have a couple of friends there as well. So they’re going to talk about it as well, talk about different aspects of history. A lot of people don’t remember it but when they add film into it, they go, ‘Oh I remember that time’ and they want to hear about it and talk about it. It’s an evening with me [laughs].

There are plenty of stories. A lot of people didn’t know that Don King came to Africa to give me a million dollars. Actually he wanted to give me less, but it cost him a million. And we left him on the island too. We went out to an island, we had a big party on this island and it was getting dark. As it gets dark, the water comes in. So everybody’s saying, ‘we’ve got to get the boat.’ Everybody jumped in the boat and then we realise that Don King was left on the island [laughs]. There’s so much, so much history. Pictures are a thousand words as well. There’s going to be pictures there as well, not a lot but more film. Was Don King one of the most difficult characters you had to deal with?

He was difficult. But everybody had their soft spot. He was a rough man, he wanted everything his way. You almost had to give and take with him. But when he wanted something badly, he’ll definitely put up the cash for it. Because I actually gave him heck one time. I said, ‘You bought Mike Tyson three cars.’ ³

WE HAD A PARTY ON AN ISLAND. THE WATER IS COMING IN AND WE ALL GET ON THE BOAT. THEN WE REALISE WE’VE LEFT DON KING ON THE ISLAND”