Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Lewis confident of victory

It isn't that Lennox Lewis is invincible or can't be beaten. Fact is, he has lost twice in his 14-year professional boxing career.

But when an opponent steps into the ring with the suave Englishman, he has accepted a demanding challenge.

Lewis neither goes down easily nor gives up the fight, and has, at the age of 37, carved an interesting and still-developing legacy. He's a heavyweight who has fought the best and marched through a succession of top-notch opponents, and Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles he'll be looking to add another prominent name to his resume.

He's fighting Vitali Klitschko in a 12-round bout on HBO that offers more than a little intrigue. But Lewis is, as always, confident and has all but issued a warning to his Ukrainian rival.

"I've been tried and tested," said Lewis, who holds the No. 2 position in the debut of the Las Vegas Sun's mythical pound-for-pound rankings of current fighters. "Who else has my style, my power and all my equipment?"

Who else, indeed?

Perhaps Roy Jones Jr., who is No. 1 in the Sun rankings. But few men in the world today can match Lewis when it comes to getting the job done, which would seem to be the foremost requirement when listing the best fighters the sport has to offer.

"Roy Jones is a remarkable boxer with remarkable talent," Lewis concedes. "He puts himself first and me third, with Evander Holyfield second, in his own heavyweight ratings.

"But I'm a true professional. I'm basically a great professional."

There is no dispute there.

"I think Lewis is the best heavyweight in the division and everyone knows it," Klitschko said during a conference call. "Like he says, he's the greatest. He comes from England ... over there, they say the king does not make himself king, the people around him do."

Klitschko was not attempting to be coy or sarcastic. He knows he's fighting a man who has been a heavyweight champion for more than 10 years, with only a couple of brief interruptions.

"I've seen a lot of Lewis' fights and I know what he wants to do against me," Klitschko said. "Lewis is a smart fighter and has great technique. But I am going into this fight with confidence and I am going to give everything I have."

Klitschko, 31, the older brother of fellow heavyweight contender Wladimir Klitschko, is 32-1 with 31 knockouts. The loss on his record came under difficult circumstances, as he was leading on the judges' scorecards in a 2000 fight with Chris Byrd when an injured left shoulder forced him to quit on his stool after the ninth round.

Lewis is 40-2-1 with 31 KOs and has not fought since battering Mike Tyson into submission 12 months ago.

Lewis was to have fought Kirk Johnson in LA, but Lewis and Klitschko both adjusted when Johnson was injured and had to withdraw. Klitschko slipped out of his scheduled fight with Cedric Boswell and a deal was struck with Lewis and HBO.

"Two weeks of preparation (for Lewis) is not enough," Klitschko said. "But I have been waiting for this fight for almost three years and I really am prepared.

"He says I am not strong enough and not in a champion's league. But only one guy beat me and he was losing the fight when I got hurt."

Klitschko will be in a champion's league if he pulls off an upset in a fight in which he's a plus-325 underdog in Las Vegas. Lewis is a minus-450 favorite, with the over-under round proposition bet ranging from 9 at the Mirage in Las Vegas to 7 1/2 at some offshore sports books.

Klitschko will also need the win to crack the Sun's pound-for-pound rankings, which place an emphasis on resiliency and the ability to win a fight at all costs. The current rankings follow.

Trainer Emanuel Steward handles Lewis these days and is familiar with each of the forementioned champions, but he says there's something special about his high-profile pupil.

"Lennox has been fighting Class-A fighters his entire career," Steward said. "He only focuses on fighting top-notch, quality guys."

A couple of those guys beat Lewis, but in each case he avenged the defeat in emphatic fashion. Oliver McCall -- his eyes closed as he delivered the punch -- knocked out Lewis in a 1994 fight in England, and Hasim Rahman provided an equally stunning knockout punch in beating Lewis two years ago in South Africa.

But Lewis abused McCall in their 1997 rematch in Las Vegas and he did the same when he got Rahman for a second time, late in 2001 in Las Vegas.

Lewis has also defeated a baseball team's worth of stars, including Razor Ruddock, Tony Tucker, Frank Bruno, Andrew Golota, Frans Botha, David Tua, Tommy Morrison, Holyfield and Tyson.

"But nobody's perfect, everyone has weaknesses," Klitschko is quick to add, mentioning that his brother's experience in a fake fight with Lewis that was part of the "Ocean's Eleven" remake might also come to his aid.

"He gave me some tips, he learned some things," Vitali said of Wladimir's experience in front of a camera with Lewis in Las Vegas.

Steward said those lessons, as well as Klitschko's 2-inch height advantage on Lewis, will make for an entertaining fight.

"It's an explosive fight between two big guys and a fight with international interest," he said. "I'm more excited about this fight than I've been about a fight in a long time."

And that's well and good as far as Lewis is concerned.

"This is the fight for me," he said. "I believe I'm the one who will be able to adapt and adjust."

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