By Aaron Klein: If talking is all it would take to get Lennox Lewis to come back, then WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko would have had his long hoped for bout against Lewis long ago. But that doesn’t look like it’s going to be happening – ever. Still, I suppose you can’t blame Vitali for trying.

In a recent interview with Setanta Sports, Vitali said “Right now, after the Peter fight, a fight against Lennox Lewis is very interesting. Maybe Lennox Lewis is thinking about coming back.” Maybe Lewis isn’t thinking about a fight, Vitali should have said. With the huge amount of money that Lewis made in his career with two mega fights against Evander Holyfield, another huge payday against Mike Tyson, Lewis got out of boxing with a lot of winnings. Besides those fights, Lewis never shied away from taking on other top fighters like David Tua, Oliver McCall and Ray Mercer, to name just a few.

That would explain why Lewis was able to make a lot of money while in the sport and retire without the need to make pointless comebacks against fighters like Vitali, who need him more than he needs them. What Vitali should be doing instead of obsessing on a revenge match against the 43 year-old Lewis, is to start fighting his mandatories and try and stick around long enough for a good fighter to emerge for which he can eventually get a good payday against. Vitali may not get a big named fighter like Tyson, that’s probably not realistic, but he can get a handful of decent paydays if he stays healthy enough.

Vitali may have a chance for a bout against David Haye in 2009, if Haye takes out Wladimir, Vitali’s younger brother. Wladimir’s chin is weak, and he might have problems against the big punching Haye. If that turns out to be the case, it would set up a bout in which Vitali can come forward and gain revenge for Wladimir by beating up Haye. Like I said before, I doubt Haye could ever beat Vital, because he’s got too good of a chin and too much size.

Lewis is doing well with HBO, and unless he was offered some outrageous sum of money, probably in the $30-50 million dollar range, I couldn’t see him wanting to come back to what would probably be a guaranteed loss to Vitali. I don’t think that Vitali wants the fight to avenge his previous 6th round TKO loss to Lewis in 2003, like some people think. If that was the case, Vitali probably would have long ago chased down Chris Byrd, who defeated Vitali by a 9th round TKO when Vitali quit on his stool in between rounds. I think Vitali knows that that a bout with Lewis is his best chance at getting a huge payday, one that would probably take him another 10 fights to equal if he were to stick around that long.