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Nearly 16,000 fans turned up to see Lewis receive a six-round hammering by Vitali Klitschko in LA on the 21st June. Then ringside doctor Paul Wallace pulled Klitschko out of the fight because Lewis opened up a cut near his eye.
Up
until that point, Lewis looked really dodgy. He was down on point with all three
judges. And why? He wasn't fighting fit. He'd done nothing for a year. This was
exactly the mistake he made when he lost the title. Is is management team doing
it deliberately to make his career seem more interesting?
By round two Klitschko was pounding him badly, thought the champ did stage a recovery and opened up the cut in the third. Klitschko later claimed this was done with a head-butt, but it looked more like an overhead right did the work.
Klitschko was furious at having the fight stopped, and there are lots of conspiracy theories out there, about HBO interfering with the result to make way for a rematch. After the fight Lewis said he was ".. happy to give him a rematch because I will bust up the other side of his face as well." Get some practive in Lennox or you might not be so lucky.
Dr Wallace explained: "The cut interfered with the boxer's ability to
protect himself. He had to
move his head so the lid was out of the way.
"If he could not see a person he couldn't see a punch. The laceration became a danger to him."
It looked like a pretty bad cut to me. What would HBO have gained either way?
Lewis actually reckons Klitschko was lucky; given a few more rounds Klitschko would have been flattened and therefore he'd been robbed of a spectacular victory. Oh yeah?
A boxing comeback as a 50-something? George Foreman has some limitations for it, but apparently he's all game.
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In a television interview scheduled for broadcast Thursday, Tyson again denied he raped Desiree Washington in 1991 in an Indianapolis hotel room. But he said the burden of being labeled a convicted rapist makes him want to do it now.
LOS ANGELES -- Vitali Klitschko is getting his chance to fight Lennox Lewis earlier than expected.
Lewis will defend his heavyweight title against Klitschko on June 21 at Staples Center.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Former featherweight champion Antonio Cermeno was arrested on charges he swindled $21,000 from a woman in what was supposed to be a currency exchange.
LONDON -- World heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis says Mike Tyson is scared of him and there is no chance of a rematch between the pair.
"I won't ever fight Tyson again," Lewis told British newspapers on Thursday from his training camp in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.
It's a beautiful morning in Harlem, sunny enough that someone like me feels safe strolling along 118th Street. Beaten-up buildings and abandoned plots swallow much of the block. A Cameroon tea shop provides the only sign of life. To understand someone who can't possibly be understood, you have to come here. This is Mike Tyson's home away from home.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Oscar De La Hoya doesn't want to be an actor or singer anymore. He just wants to box, and his entire focus is on his rematch with Shane Mosley.
"This is the big one. This is for all the marbles,'' De La Hoya said Wednesday. "I will definitely be hungrier than ever, more than what I was for (Fernando) Vargas, because the fact that Mosley beat me.''
Warning from Max: The following is the driest possible analysis of the position of the top 10 fighters pound for pound in the world. It is intended only for hard-core boxing fans. The author is not responsible for unintended effects caused by misuse of this column by casual boxing fans looking for an entertaining read...
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Tonya Harding, the bad girl of figure skating turned boxer, has agreed to a match at an Iowa casino.
Harding, forever tied to the 1994 knee-whacking of rival skater Nancy Kerrigan, will appear May 9 at Lakeside Casino Resort in Osceola.
LAS VEGAS -- The rematch between Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley will be in Las Vegas on Sept. 13.
De La Hoya, the super welterweight champion, will fight Mosley at the MGM Grand Garden, Top Rank president Bob Arum said.
LEIPZIG, Germany -- Markus Beyer of Germany beat Eric Lucas of Canada by a split decision to win the World Boxing Council middleweight belt Saturday night.
LOS ANGELES -- U.S. Olympian Jose Navarro remained unbeaten as a professional with a unanimous 12-round decision over Jorge Luis Gonzalez in a super flyweight fight Thursday night.
LAS VEGAS -- Lennox Lewis is still looking to fight June 21. Still to be decided is his opponent, and whether Lewis will even have a title to defend.
Lewis missed a Tuesday deadline set by the WBC to clarify his plans. He is negotiating to fight Kirk Johnson on June 21, while pursuing legal action to keep the WBC from stripping him for not fighting top-ranked Vitali Klitschko.
LOS ANGELES -- Fernando Vargas will face Fitz Vanderpool in a 10-round fight July 26, his first bout since losing his title to Oscar De La Hoya and being suspended for a positive steroid test.
FRESNO, Calif. -- Floyd Mayweather Jr. defended his WBC lightweight title with a unanimous decision over Victoriano Sosa on Saturday night.
It was another classic boxer-versus-puncher fight, but this time in the boxing-crazy town of Fresno, a frenzied crowd enjoyed every minute.
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Figure skater-turned-boxer Tonya Harding has pulled out of a boxing match in central Iowa next week under a doctor's orders.
KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Former heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick was cleared of a burglary charge Tuesday after the woman who accused him of breaking into her home declined to pursue the matter.
Berbick, who has a criminal record in the United States, was arrested in January after his sister-in-law accused him of stealing several household items from her home.
MASHANTUCKET, Conn. -- James Toney had just finished a slugging contest with Vassiliy Jirov for the IBF cruiserweight title when his thoughts turned to bigger things.
"Chris Byrd better watch out,'' Toney said at the postfight news conference early Sunday after he earned a unanimous decision and handed Jirov his first professional loss. "If the opportunity came for me, I'd fight Lennox Lewis or Chris Byrd.''
LOS ANGELES -- Top-ranked heavyweight contender Vitali Klitschko has been added to next month's Staples Center card that features WBC champion Lennox Lewis against Kirk Johnson.
LAS VEGAS -- Raul Marquez believes his career might have gone differently with more national TV exposure. About the time he was turning pro, however, networks were dropping boxing.
Marquez will be behind a microphone instead of in the ring Saturday when boxing returns to network television after more than a decade with a featherweight fight between former Olympian Rocky Juarez and Frank Archuleta on NBC.
LAS VEGAS -- Former Olympian Rocky Juarez stopped Frank Archuleta in the sixth round Saturday in a featherweight bout that marked boxing's return to network television.
Tuneup goes as expected for De La Hoya
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Heavyweight Jameel McCline rallied from a slow start and stopped Charles Shufford in the third round Friday night.
McCline, who lost to Wladimir Klitschko in his last fight, was nearly knocked down by a stiff right to the face in the second round, staggering backward and barely managing to keep his feet.
LAS VEGAS -- Fighters may soon have the chance to become card-carrying Teamsters.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said Monday it has begun the process of affiliating the Joint Association of Boxers as a professional fighters' union.
NEW YORK -- Lennox Lewis got a court order Friday that keeps Mike Tyson and promoter Don King from settling any money disputes without telling Lewis in advance.
The same temporary restraining order, obtained by Lewis' lawyer Judd Burstein, also directs television networks Showtime and HBO to withhold all money due to King in connection with his sponsorship of past fights.
The Mike Tyson/Clifford Etienne is back on again, after the former undisputed heavyweight champion
flew into Memphis in readiness for Saturday's fight at the Pyramid Arena.
On Monday, Tyson announced he. was pulling out the the bout because he had a the flu and a stomach ache, but my sources say it was due partly to an allergic reaction to a new tattoo on his face, and partly because of the "small" purse on offer - $1.5M
But this Tuesday he said it was going ahead? Why the change of heart? It seems that an increased offer of $3.5M (rumored) has cured the virus, put up by the Showtime cable network in the US.
His trainer, Freddie Roach claimed: "I don't think he was pressured. He just felt better this morning."
Yeah, right. Who wouldn't feel better after a $2M pay rise.
Promoter Brian Young added that "If Clifford doesn't fight, there will be somebody else that will." Apparently his brother is looking for a replacement right now.
It seems like Etienne isn't happy about Tyson's posturing; his manager Les Bonano put it "Well, we are back on but we have got a major problem: Clifford doesn't want to fight now. Tyson doesn't call the shots and tell him when he is going to fight and when he ain't going to fight."
Of course he's going to fight - this is his fifteen minutes of fame. Clifford "Black Rhino" Etienne has come a long way for this, and was boasting last week how he was "going to shock a lot of people".
"I think Tyson is done. I'm in that one percent he can't beat," he said.
"I'm not scared of anybody. He bleeds like me. He hurts like me. He has to try and get me before I get him."
Etienne and Tyson has more than boxing in common - they've both
ex-convicts and both converted to Islam while inside. Etienne received a
40-year sentence for armed robbery when he was just 17, ending hopes of a
promising career in American football or basketball. He took up boxing, an
since his release after serving ten years he's won 24 of his 26
professional fights, with just one defeat. Sounds good?
Unfortunately for him, his run was broken when he was knocked down no less than seven times in eight rounds by Puerto Rican Fres Oquendo.
Although Tyson hasn't prepared properly for this fight, it's considered likely that it's still be an easy win for him. He needs a win if he's to get the credibility needed for a rematch with Lewis, penciled in for the 21st June. Etienne just needs to win.
It's about time one of the Eye of the Tiger's shows made it to this news
page, and now it's happened thanks to Matthew Bowen, King of the Cockneys. He's
only gone and chickened out of his Southern Super-Middleweight title challenge,
with a month to go.
However, fight fans really won't be disappointed as another challenger was waiting in the wings, and this time it is Barney's camp that was having second thoughts about fighting challenger Chris Nembhard. The former Jamaican Olympic boxer has a dangerous reputation, but hasn't had it his own way since moving to London. He now has something to prove, and the guts to prove it.
A week's negotiations are over, and both fighters are now well and truly up for it. With just five places between them in the national rankings the scene is set for an epic battle. See you there on 20th October, Elephant and Castle Leisure Centre.
Lennox Lewis has lost his IBF World Title after he said he
wouldn't defend it against Chris Byrd, missing Thursday's deadline to
agree to the fight.
This leaves Lewis with the just the WBC crown.He unified the heavyweight titles when he beat Evander Holyfield in 2000, but lost the WBA title two years ago in a court-room battle with promoter Don King.
Lewis responded:
"My team and I had already determined that there was no public interest in a Lennox Lewis/Chris Byrd bout."
No public interest, or no money? He added
"If I were to fight Chris Byrd, my likely next IBF mandatory defence would be against an opponent that I have already beaten", implying Hasim Rahman, Evander Holyfield or David Tuar.
"The fact is that the champion makes the belt important, not the other way round. As I have recently stated, the world has yet to see the best of Lennox Lewis."
There is another reason why he doesn't want to fight Chris Byrd - he won't have time. Word from inside the Lewis camp says that negotiations are well under way for a rematch with Tyson, which wouldn't be possible if he defended the IBF title.
In a three-fight deal he could end up defending against the Klitschko brothers from the Ukraine, taking on Vitali Klitschko in the US this December, Tyson in April and WBO champion Vladimir Klitschko in Autumn 2003.
Chris Byrd and ex-champ Evander Holyfield are now left to slug it out for the vacant IBF belt.
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I've heard tell that Tyson got mighty upset when his bodyguards didn't show up in time for dinner last week. He must have been really hungry, because the story goes that he pulled a knife on one of them when they finally arrived. Not the best idea he's ever had. The bodyguard in question isn't pressing charges so this might come to nothing. It might even be nothing already, but it's not going to help keep out of prison long enough for his next fight. If he'd been really, really mad he might have punched the guy.
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Lennox Lewis was talking about a rematch with Mike Tyson when he collected his CBE from Prince Charles, in return for the promise of a video of the first fight. A little bird tells me that this is now likely to happen - in Las Vegas. Whether he'll get the $30m he's asking remains to be seen.
Lewis is now 36, and talking about retirement. He now has an MBE and a CBE. He's made a few quid over the years, and no doubt $30m would help boost his pension.
Publicly he's been saying that he feels that the television companies were not desperate for a rematch.
"People don't want to see that again because of the way I destroyed him. People felt sorry for him."
I don't know what the Prince of Wales thinks about it - he may not have seen the tape yet.
Word is that part of the deal behind the Lewis/Tyson meeting was an insistence on clauses in the contract that force Tyson to pay Lewis a tidy sum if he breaks the rules. Lewis has also asked the promoters to pay for his personal security guards, but they've told him where to get off.
Who can forget the scenes at the press conference that started it all? But its easy to forget who threw the first punch on that occasion. That doesn't make the champion tough - it shows he's scared. So you have to ask yourself which of the heavyweights is most likely to lose control.
You've also got to wonder what will happen when they finally meet in the ring - and the plan is to keep them apart at all times until the bell. If Lewis is still scared of being hit by Tyson he's going to either keep him at a distance or grab him when he comes close. And Lewis should be scared when facing the one of the worlds greatest heavyweight punchers if the likes of Rahman and McCall can knock him out.
It doesn't look like being a clean fight. A lot depends on how Tyson will react to being grabbed and smothered by Lewis' strength. He could keep his cool and wait for his chance, or he could disgrace himself like he did when Evander Holyfield held him and got his ear bitten.
Lewis' best option is to take what Tyson gives him and come back - Holyfield proved that Tyson can't cope with that. But if Lewis is really as scared as he's acting he won't do that, and assuming neither of them lose their cool they'll probably keep going until one or both of them is exhausted.
Giving a rebel a cause
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