BRITAIN’S WBC and IBF heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis has labelled Mike Tyson an imbecile and says he is acting like a ”cartoon character” as the boxers continue to trade verbal jabs ahead of their title fight on June 8 in Memphis.
”I haven?t been taken in,” Lewis told the London Times newspaper on Tuesday at his training camp in a US mountain resort near New York.
”He?s an imbecile when it comes to certain comments. I don?t think he?s off his head, but he may be looking for an excuse not to fight me.”
Tyson, the WBC’s top-ranked challenger, stepped up the war of words recently by claiming he would ”kill” Lewis when the two meet in the ring.
”I think he?s mentally and physically fit, but his antics outside the ring sound like a cartoon character,” Lewis was quoted as saying. ”When he was incarcerated, he said he was reading; it sounds like he was reading comic books.”
Lewis said Tyson’s posturing reinforces the champs’ belief that Tyson is afraid to step into the ring with him at the Pyramid arena in Memphis, Tennessee.
”He?s the last misfit of my era,” said Lewis. ”This places me in history as a great fighter. I can say I laid them all to rest.”
For the past three weeks Lewis has been training at his camp in the Pocono Mountains, 149 kilometres east of New York.
Memphis was chosen to host the fight after the state of Nevada rejected Tyson’s application for a license.
Lewis and Tyson were to have fought last month in Las Vegas, but a brawl broke out at a news conference to announce the fight and Lewis was bitten on the leg by Tyson in a melee that began when Tyson walked across a stage in a threatening manner.
Tyson’s recent history has been a less than a proud one both in and out of the ring.
The fiery pugilist, whose record stands at 49 victories with 43 knockouts, three defeats and two no-contests, had his license suspended after biting the ear of Evander Holyfield in their 1997 rematch, and again in 1999 when he hit Orlin Norris after the bell in a fight that resulted in a no-contest.
Since then, Tyson has won all four of his fights with three coming overseas. In his most recent bout, Tyson registered a seventh-round technical knockout over Brian Nielsen in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 13.
A former undisputed heavyweight champion, Tyson suffered his first loss on February 11, 1990 when he was knocked out in the 10th round by James ”Buster” Douglas in one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.
He has battled personal problems since and did not fight from 1992-95 as he was serving a prison sentence in Indiana for rape. ? Sapa-AFP