By John F. McKenna (McJack): Former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis (41-2-1, 32 KO’s) has been giving former World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 KO’s) advice recently.

A few months ago after his October retirement when the “Hayemaker” was contemplating a return to the ring he met with Lewis while on vacation in the Caribbean. At that time Lewis gave Haye advice on how to beat World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (43-2, 40 KO’s) in the event he made a return to the ring.

Again a couple of days ago Lewis gave Haye some free advice. He was quoted by Boxing Insider saying the following at an awards show in London:

“David should come out of retirement. He should come back, but he should not think about the Klitschko’s right now. He should beat a couple of other people, so people actually think: ‘yeah, you know, he can do it this time, he can beat a Klitschko.’

“There is a lot of money for him on the table and that is important for any fighter.

“All Haye has to do is jump in there against one of the Klitschko’s and take it, but he should have a couple of different fights first. If he beat a couple of other fighters first he could build himself back up.”

Boxing fans need to be reminded however, that this is the same Lennox Lewis who fougth Vitali Klitschko in 2003 and was already two rounds behind when the fight was stopped due to a horrific cut over Klitscho’s eye in the 6th round. Klitschko won over the crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles because of the performance he put up against Lewis. Everyone expected at the time that Lennox would live up to his promise to give “Dr. Ironfist” a rematch.

Instead of giving Vitali the rematch he had promised Lennox elected to retire. And this was despite Lewis’ comments to the press at the time that he would continue to fight for years and that just like fine wine he got better with age.

The excuse that some boxing pundits use that Lewis was not in the best of shape for his fight with Vitali is also bogus. Who on earth would take lightly a fighter that even in 2003 was a dominant heavyweight? It is also noteworthy to point out that since his return to the ring in 2008 Klitschko has actually improved and been more dominant than ever.

The excuse at the time of Lewis’ retirement that he was “old” does not hold up to scrutiny. At the time of the Lewis – Klitschko fight, Lewis was several years younger than Vitali Klitschko is now. Klitschko is still fighting at a high level and shows no signs of slowing down. To the contrary Vitali demonstrated in his fight with Tomasz Adamek last September that his reflexes are as sharp as ever.

It is so much easier to give advice than it is to take it, especially when it is your own advice. Instead of giving advice to David Haye, Lennox Lewis should have done the right thing and given Vitali Klitschko his promised return match, even if he feared losing to the 6’7 ½” Ukrainian.