By Scott Gilfoid: In response to new IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) calling him out, former heavyweight world champion Lennox Lewis says his favorite meal is for two, meaning Fury and his father John Fury. Lewis, 50, doesn’t understand why Tyson Fury is calling out retired former world champions like himself.
Fury recently said he wants to fight retired former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. The way Lewis sees it, former world champions are supposed to be respected by the younger generation rather than called out the way Fury is calling him out.
Lewis says he didn’t start calling out retired ex-world champions when he became a world champion, and he cannot understand what is going through Tyson Fury’s mind to make him want to call out retired champions like himself.
“Lennox Lewis is a hater of Tyson Fury. He’s a jealous old man. He’s a jealous old man because I’m at the top of the world and he’s a has-been,” Fury said via MMA Hour to skysports.com. “Whenever Lennox Lewis wants to come out of retirement, I’m here waiting for him. “I don’t care how old he is.”
Oh, this is so, so sad that it’s come to this that we’re now seeing what many boxing fans see as the equivalent of a paper champion in Tyson Fury calling out an ex-world champion like 50-year-old Lennox Lewis. What’s next, Fury calling out Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield.
What this tells me is that Fury might not like the idea of fighting the young lions in the heavyweight division like Deontay Wilder and Bryant Jennings. I mean, Fury has a rematch against 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in early 2016. If Fury wins that fight, he’ll be looking at the reality of having to face a lot hard hitting younger fighters that are plenty capable of pulling the trigger on their power shots, unlike Klitschko, who clearly has seen better days.
Here’s what Lewis said about Fury on his Instagram today:
”I’m honestly at a loss. 😂 I just heard Tyson Fury calling me out AGAIN because I apparently “hate him and am jealous of him”. 😳 Neither are true and just when I thought we squashed anything between us, I hear his interview. It seems to me that Tyson Fury has a LOT to say, EXCEPT when he’s in my face. I had dinner with him the night before his win over Klitschko and it was all very cordial and the next day he even apologized for the things he’s said. I thought we were good so you can imagine my surprise to hear this interview today. I’m honestly not sure if he’s got two personalities or what. 😂 Nonetheless, he’s done NOTHING for ME to be jealous of nor do I hate him. I’m actually starting to think it’s the other way around. In my prime, I didn’t call out retired champions. In my era, we respected them. Ali is my idol. If he picked Holyfield or Tyson to beat me, he would STILL be my idol. With the exception of Bowe, I’ve gotten along well, and shown plenty of love and respect, to all of my opponents, as well as the champions before me. This is how it’s done. For a man that has battled and fought very hard to get the respect he deserves, it’s seems to me that he missed the most important lesson… that it’s a two-way street.”
When I see Fury calling out the likes of Lewis and Vitali Klitschko, it just reeks of someone looking for payday fights to try and cash out by making the most money that he can in the sport before quickly making an exit into retirement. That’s what it seems to me that Fury is trying to do. We had already heard Fury make a retirement threat before his fight against Klitschko last November, and now Fury is facing the nearly 40-year-old Wladimir for a second time while calling out other elderly heavyweights.
I get the impression that Fury doesn’t care too much about his legacy and carving out a spot for himself by facing the young heavyweights in the division like Deontay Wilder, Jennings and Dillian Whyte. I think Fury is just looking to get two or three big paydays and then quickly retire before he gets knocked out cold by one of the younger heavyweights with huge punching power.
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