Lennox Lewis

Lennox Lewis: The Chess Player Who Ruled the Heavyweights

In the gold-medal final of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a 23-year-old fighting for Canada stopped an American named Riddick Bowe in the second round. Four years later, Bowe was heavyweight champion of the world — and gave up the WBC belt rather than face the same man again. The WBC handed it to Lennox Lewis on 14 December 1992. It is a small, telling episode: for most of his career, the hardest thing about Lewis was persuading anyone to get in the ring with him, and the second hardest was persuading anyone that he was great while he was doing it.

West Ham to Kitchener

Lennox Claudius Lewis was born on 2 September 1965 in West Ham, east London, to Jamaican immigrant parents. He weighed 10lb 10oz; the attending doctor supplied the name, remarking that he looked like a Lennox. In 1977, aged twelve, he moved with his mother to Kitchener, Ontario. At Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute he played Canadian football, soccer and basketball, helping the school's AAA basketball team to an Ontario provincial championship in 1982–83. He had started boxing around 1978, under the amateur trainer Arnie Boehm, and later worked with Adrian Teodorescu.

The Amateur Who Beat Bowe

His amateur record ran to 85–9 by one count, 75–7 by HBO's. He won gold at the 1983 Junior World Championships, reached the quarter-finals of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics at eighteen before losing to Tyrell Biggs, took Commonwealth Games gold in 1986, and lost a contested decision to the Cuban Jorge Luis González at the 1987 Pan American Games. Then came Seoul, the referee's stoppage against Bowe, and the distinction of being the first Canadian to win boxing gold in fifty-six years. He carried Canada's flag at the closing ceremony.

Turning Professional, and Erasing 93 Years

Lewis turned professional on 27 June 1989 with the promoter Frank Maloney, and moved through the belts methodically: European in October 1990, British in March 1991, Commonwealth in April 1992. The performance that changed the conversation came on 31 October 1992 against Donovan "Razor" Ruddock, then a genuinely feared contender. A beautifully timed overhand right put Ruddock down in the first; a barrage finished him in the second. The *Los Angeles Times* wrote that the night erased "93 years of English heavyweight futility." Bowe's abdication followed six weeks later, and Lewis defended the WBC title against Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno and Phil Jackson.

Two Nights on the Canvas

The two defeats of his career define him more than the forty-one wins. On 24 September 1994 at Wembley Arena, Oliver McCall knocked him out in the second round. On 22 April 2001 in South Africa, Hasim Rahman — a 20-to-1 underdog — knocked him out in the fifth. What Lewis did afterwards is the unusual part. After McCall, he hired Emanuel Steward, the trainer who rebuilt his technique into what the record calls a more complete skill set. After Rahman, he enforced a rematch clause. He then beat both men. The McCall rematch, on 7 February 1997 in Las Vegas for the vacant WBC title, became one of the strangest nights in the sport's history: McCall simply refused to fight in the fourth and fifth rounds, weeping in the ring, and the referee stopped it. The Rahman rematch, on 17 November 2001, was pure craft — footwork, stiff jabs, and then a sweeping right hand in the fourth. He also disposed of Henry Akinwande by disqualification for persistent clinching, and on 4 October 1997 knocked out the favoured Andrew Golota in ninety-five seconds.

Undisputed

On 13 March 1999 at Madison Square Garden he met Evander Holyfield, holder of the WBA and IBF titles, with the undisputed championship at stake. Lewis landed 348 punches to Holyfield's 130. The judges made it a draw — Stanley Christodoulou 116–113 to Lewis, Eugenia Williams 115–113 to Holyfield, Larry O'Connell 115–115 — to loud boos and commentary calling the verdict a travesty. The rematch in Las Vegas on 13 November 1999 went to Lewis by unanimous decision, 115–113, 116–112 and 117–111, though that verdict too had its dissenters. It made him the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Bowe in 1992, and the first British holder of the undisputed title since Bob Fitzsimmons in 1899. He defended against Michael Grant in April 2000 and David Tua that November.

Tyson, Klitschko, and a Clean Exit

On 8 June 2002 in Memphis he finally fought Mike Tyson, in a bout that generated a record $106.9 million from 1.95 million US pay-per-view buys, and knocked him out in the eighth with a right cross. His last fight, against Vitali Klitschko at the Staples Center on 21 June 2003, was the hardest of his late career: Lewis was rocked early, then took over with right hands and heavy uppercuts until the ringside doctor stopped it with Klitschko's eye badly cut. He announced his retirement in February 2004 — as champion, which almost no heavyweight manages. His final record was 44 fights: 41 wins, 32 inside the distance, 2 losses and 1 draw. He held the WBC title three times, the IBF and IBO twice each and the WBA once, made fourteen world-title defences and beat fifteen world-title challengers, the fifth-highest tally in the division's history.

Why Lennox Is Called a Genius

The chess is not a metaphor. Lewis is a serious amateur player who has funded after-school chess programmes for disadvantaged children, and the label attached itself because his fighting resembled his hobby: control of space, patience, a refusal to trade when trading was unnecessary. The specific skill is range management. At 6ft 5in he owned the longest effective jab in the division and used it not as a scoring shot but as a surveying instrument, holding opponents at a distance where his right hand could reach them and theirs could not. Reviewers of his career consistently name the same three assets — ring intelligence, the jab, the right hand — in that order, which is itself unusual for a heavyweight.

The more persuasive evidence is diagnostic rather than physical. Twice he was knocked out by men he should have beaten. Twice he identified the flaw, changed something structural — a new trainer in Emanuel Steward after McCall, a rebuilt game plan after Rahman — and knocked the man out in the return. Very few fighters can look honestly at a defeat and correct it; most simply repeat themselves harder.

The counter-case is real. Those two knockout losses happened, and they raised lasting questions about his chin and his focus against opponents he did not rate. He was frequently criticised as cautious, a fighter who won by subtraction. The first Holyfield fight was scored a draw and the second was disputed by observers who thought Holyfield deserved better. And the acclaim came late: it was the retrospective verdicts — *The Ring* naming him the best heavyweight of the previous thirty years in 2017, *Boxing News* ranking him third all-time behind Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis in 2018 — that caught up with what he had actually done.

Legacy

Lewis was named Fighter of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America and BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1999. He was appointed MBE in 1998 and CBE in 2002, entered Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2009, in his first year of eligibility. Wilfrid Laurier University gave him an honorary doctorate in 2011. He holds dual British and Canadian citizenship, married Violet Chang in 2005, has four children, runs the Lennox Lewis Foundation for disadvantaged children across Canada, Jamaica, the UK and the US, appeared in *Ocean's Eleven* in 2001, turned down a reported multi-million-dollar WWE offer to fight Brock Lesnar, and worked as an analyst on HBO's *Boxing After Dark* from 2006 to 2010. He beat every man he ever faced — which, in the heavyweight division, is the only argument that finally settles anything.

Achievements

• WBA World Heavyweight Champion
• IBF World Heavyweight Champion
• The Ring World Heavyweight Champion
• IBO World Heavyweight Champion
• International Boxing Hall of Fame
• Canada's Sports Hall of Fame
• Member of the Order of Canada
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• Competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics
• Competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics