Kevin Mitchell backs Lennox Lewis in this weekend’s world heavyweight unification bout
On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York, two big men will slug it out for the biggest title on offer, the heavyweight champion of the world.
One of them, Lennox Lewis, is certain to be as happy as anyone in the building. But whether or not Lewis maintains that state for the course of the evening depends, of course, on how he copes with the considerable ring presence of Evander Holyfield in the most eagerly anticipated heavyweight showdown for many years. My instincts say Lewis will prevail.
How they all ended up at the famous venue, rather than at one of the Las Vegas casinos normally associated with these megafights, is predictably complicated. Suffice it to say that the involvement of Holyfield’s promoter, Don King, was a factor and the fight fraternity can at least be thankful that the setting will be suitably grand on a night when the heavyweight title is rehabilitated.
Holyfield holds the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation belts, Lewis has the championship recognised by the World Boxing Council. It says something for the integrity of the participants that they have laid everything on the line, rather than hiving off bits of the title to be scrapped over elsewhere in the event of defeat. It is a gesture, and a fine one. There might not be another one along for some time.
The prevailing wisdom gives Holyfield a slight edge and there are some respected voices who hold that view, among them Eddie Futch, who once trained Riddick Bowe and, back when credibility was not such a rarity, Joe Frazier.
>From the luxury of retirement in his mid- Eighties, Futch brings as much objectivity to the debate as anyone can and reckons his countryman has the tougher spirit.
With all due respect to one of boxing’s undoubted sages, it is difficult to see why he can be so sure that Lewis will not be every bit as resolute under fire as Holyfield on the biggest night of his life. The 36- year-old American has certainly had more tough fights and has come through all of them except the bad knockout loss in the third rubber fight with Bowe with his reputation for hardness intact.
But, while Lewis can only point to a wearing night over 10 rounds against the rock-like Ray Mercer, a fight he was deemed by many good judges to have lost, it can be argued that his stoppage loss to Oliver McCall five years ago caught him cold in round two; he looked willing enough to continue.
Similarly, he was shaken by Shannon Briggs last year before stopping him in five rounds, yet he did not go looking for the exit and, while obviously causing concern when his stamina seemed to seep from his enormous frame, he gutted it out. When Holyfield rallied in similar fashion in the first of his Bowe fights for what was regarded as one of the epic rounds in heavyweight history, he was rightly lauded for his courage.
So I’m not totally convinced that Lewis does not have the steel in him to survive a brutal examination at this level. Whatever, we will find out soon enough.
What Lewis does bring to the party in greater measure than all of Holyfield’s opponents bar Mike Tyson is power. It is the leveller that did for Holyfield against Bowe and, despite the bizarre conclusion, it looked in one brief exchange before Tyson went ballistic in their rematch as if it was starting to unhinge Holyfield. Certainly Tommy Brooks, who was alongside Don Turner in Holyfield’s corner that night, and subsequently trained Tyson for his comeback fight against Francois Botha, thought so – which was honest enough of him.
While Brooks and Turner are more familiar than anyone with Holyfield’s current state of mind and body, Lewis’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, has a history with him too. The night Holyfield lost to Michael Moorer, Steward was scathing. “All those hours of pumping iron, all that bodybuilding, no wonder he ran out of steam.”
Holyfield at first said a weak heart had threatened his health in that bout – but subsequently claimed that this diagnosis was a false one brought on by excess rehydration afterwards in hospital. Regardless, he has rebuilt himself splendidly and, even after 15 years as a professional, his dedication shines through every pore.
There was a scare last week over his fitness when he revealed he was recovering from flu and had to interrupt his preparation. The word from Lewis’s camp is that everything has gone perfectly. The Londoner will need every little advantage that comes his way; lingering weaknesses in his opponent’s general fitness ought to be pounced on from the first bell.
This is where Lewis should direct his energies. If his own stamina is suspect, he will be worrying about it the longer the fight lasts; if he jumps on Holyfield, like he did with Andrew Golota in a first-round blitz that left the Pole bewildered and hurt, he will at the very least gain Holyfield’s respect.
Lewis, contrary to the image of meekness that he brings to interviews, has suffered a couple of times from not showing opponents respect, notably McCall and Briggs. That is surely an impossibility in this fight.
Steward was in McCall’s corner in 1994 when he stopped Lewis. It was then that Lewis joined Steward, probably the wisest move of his career. “I think it made me a better fighter,” he says now of the shock defeat. “It created a great relationship between me and Emanuel.”
Steward, who has trained 27 world champions, says: “When I first became involved with Lennox, he was too tentative, too cautious. Our first fight was with Lionel Butler, and he was still scarred by the knockout to Oliver McCall.”
His critics say he remains gunshy. But, having accepted the short end of the money here, it seems he views this contest as his one grab at greatness. It is more likely than not that he will abandon caution if tagged. He could, in fact, provide the sort of epic, desperate response that will leave us gasping.
Boxing badly needs something good to happen to it. Putting sentiment aside and dismissing the fairytale chances of Clarke, a win for Lewis might be that good thing. It would be the sort of result that could restore sanity to a business never far from chaos.
At the risk of descending into the mush of nostalgia that attends his every move, Muhammad Ali certainly dressed up professional boxing when he dedicated his 1970 fight at Madison Square Garden against Oscar Bonavena to a black man who had been tortured by racists in Alabama. Don King, 29 years later, has invited Margaret Thatcher. As ever, it is left to the fighters to rescue the evening.