By Jim Dower: Former World Boxing Organization (WBO) heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster (35-6, 30 KO’s) has reportedly announced his retirement from boxing today after 14 years as a professional fighter. Brewster, 37, is one of the few fighters that hold wins over Wladimir Klitschko. In a press release sent out today, Brewster said that he had couldn’t see out of his left eye and had four unsuccessful surgeries to try and fix the problem. He lost sight out of the eye in his last fight against Robert Helenius a year ago.

Brewster pulled off a major upset in April 2004 when he walked through a storm of shots from Klitschko to stop him in the 5th to capture the WBO heavyweight title. Brewster successfully defending the title three times, beating Andrew Golota, Kali Meehan and Luan Krasniqi before losing the title in a 12 round decision to Sergey Liakohovich in April 2006. Brewster injured his left eye in that loss, and required surgery to repair a detached retina.

After a year off from boxing to let the injury heal, Brewster came back for an ill advised rematch with Wladimir in July 2007. Brewster didn’t have the same fire that he once had, and after listless six rounds, the fight was stopped by his trainer. Following another year off, Brewster returned to action and defeated Danny Bathelder and then Michael Sprott in back to back fights. However, in August 2009, Brewster was beaten by Gbenga Oloukun by a questionable eight round decision. And then in Brewster’s last fight, he was destroyed by Robert Helenius in an eight round TKO loss a year ago in January 2010.