Forget About a Lewis Comeback

By Boxing News - 11/26/2008 - Comments

Image: Forget About a Lewis ComebackBy Jim Dower: If it isn’t already obvious by now to all boxing fans, let me be the one to tell you, Lennox Lewis won’t be making a comeback to the sport now or probably ever and the fans that are hoping for him to come back really need to give it a much needed rest. For some reason, the topic of Lewis making a comeback pops up every few months, if nothing else because of the dull state of the heavyweight division.

However, at 43, wealthy, slightly plump and seemingly content, the last thing that Lewis wants is to make a comeback against the likes of World Boxing Council heavyweight champion or his younger brother, IBF/WBO heavyweight title holder Wladimir.

Lewis has already beaten a prime Vitali five years ago in 2003, stopping him by cuts in a brutal six-round affair. At the time, Lewis was 38, tired of the sport after having accomplished all of his goals in boxing and not in the best of shape.

Yet even under those conditions, Lewis was good enough to rock Vitali on a couple of occasions in the 6th round, slicing his face to ribbons with big right hands and looking to have him on the verge of a knockout in a round or two. Naturally, Vitali would like nothing better than to try and avenge that defeat, both because of his desire for revenge plus the likely excellent payday he would get in a fight with Lewis, no matter what his age or physical condition.

Lewis, always one for a good sound bite, said recently to the British press that he might return for $100 million dollars. However, he later said that he would think about a fight with Vitali if he would fight his brother, Wladimir, knowing that the Klitschko brothers have long said that they would never fight each other.

In other words, Lewis would fight Vitali when pigs fly. Lewis doesn’t need a fight with the Klitschko’s or any other heavyweight, because he’s already made a legacy for himself, beating the top fighters of his day like Evander Holyfield, Andrew Golota and Mike Tyson, while holding onto the major share of the heavyweight crown for five long years.

Unlike super middleweight Joe Calzaghe, Lewis fought the best fighters of his day while they were in their prime, ducking no one and seemingly unafraid to mix it up with the biggest of sluggers like David Tua and Tyson. Perhaps Lewis might be interested in making a comeback if he had left a few stones unturned and not accomplished a lot in his career, but that’s not the case.

If anything, Lewis would be tainting his career if he were to try and come back now and take on someone like Vitali. With five years away from the ring, it would be a minor miracle if he were able to be even 60% what he was in his prime, and he would be almost guaranteeing a poor performance.

For fighters like Vitali, he needs to consider working his way through the division the hard way like Lewis did, and hopefully if he can stay injury free for awhile, he may be able to find a suitable opponent that would give him more status as a fighter.

A fight with David Haye, the former British cruiserweight, would be a good start. At 215, Haye is small, short and fast, and would probably get stomped on by Vitali if they were to fight.