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November 1999
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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NOW OR NEVER
GLYN LEACH sets the scene for the Lewis-Holyfield rematch, a fight that desperately needs to deliver. But can it? |
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HIS TURF: Holyfield (left) has proven his ability to win rematches, while Lewis
is conservative by nature - and that is what cost him the first fight
- Get Big Pic One
of the saddest things I’ve seen in recent months was Oscar De La
Hoya’s face in the moments following the loss of his unbeaten record and
welterweight title to Felix Trinidad. The guy was hurting, big time, but
still he forced his patented Oscar smile, a sickly, horrible, joyless
grin. Just as he did not bare his soul in the fight, he could not in the
interview that followed. One gets the impression that he would have died
rather than let his facade slip.
I find it impossible to approach Lennox Lewis’s heavyweight title
unification rematch against Evander Holyfield without recalling the fate
of De La Hoya. The similarities are inescapable between the first
Lewis-Holyfield match, at Madison Square Garden in March, and De La
Hoya’s 1999 fights against Ike Quartey and more particularly Trinidad.
For all the cries of "robbery", all the conspiracies that some have
busied themselves theorising about, there is no disputing the fact that
Lewis against Holyfield, like De La Hoya against Trinidad, did not
compete in the final quarter of the fight. Had they, then there would
have been no need for government investigations and the like. They both
would have been winners.
I realise that many of you feel that both Lewis and De La Hoya were
robbed, and many of you will know that I disagree - and ours appear to
be entrenched positions that will never meet. So it goes. But our
differing opinions count for nothing when weighed against the scorecards
in the final four rounds of both fights. Nobody disputes the scoring in
those rounds, and it is in those rounds that victory became otherwise
for Lewis and De La Hoya.
The contests were there to be won, but Lewis and De La Hoya elected to
fight not to lose rather than fight to win. Their respective levels of
commitment dropped as their contests drew to a close, and it was in
those very rounds that they allowed the verdicts to go against them
(although obviously Lewis drew while De La Hoya lost).
De La Hoya’s problems started in round nine, which two judges awarded
to Trinidad - this after a four-round spell in which Tito had managed to
win just one round on the cards of two judges, none on the third. Aside
from some peculiarly Belgian scoring from Bob Logist in the final round,
which he somehow gave to De La Hoya - almost as dubious as judge Eugenia
Williams awarding the fifth round of Lewis-Holyfield to Evander, in my
book - De La Hoya lost the last three rounds on all three official
scorecards.
Lewis’s fade started in the eighth. All three judges awarded that
round and the ninth to Holyfield. Larry O’Connell thought Lewis drew the
10th, but his colleagues went for Holyfield. Stanley Christoudoulou
thought Lewis drew the 11th, but his colleagues went for Holyfield. But
unlike De La Hoya, Lewis sensed that he needed to win the final round,
which he did, and that is why he is still champion according to the
World Boxing Council while De La Hoya is not.
Those who support the claims of De La Hoya and Lewis believe that the
work those fighters did earlier in their "defining" bouts should have
seen them right. I can understand that. But then I would have thought
anyone can comprehend that the giving away of three or four rounds at
the end of a contest is a highly risky thing for a fighter to do. And
frankly, I have no sympathy with fighters who, having taken such risks,
end up with egg on their faces. They took the risks, they must accept
the consequences. Nobody else is to blame.
Well that’s not quite true. In De La Hoya’s case, his corner are as
baffled by the defeat as is the fighter. They thought the Golden Boy
fought a perfect fight, when plainly he did not. Lewis is a different
matter. Trainer Emanuel Steward was pleading with him to raise his game,
take the fight to Holyfield more, but Lewis knew better - he thought.
The result proved who was right, but all manner of support from a
largely ignorant media and public, many of whom didn’t even see the
fight, will persuade Lewis otherwise.
Personally, I would listen to Steward rather than some twat on a news
desk who hasn’t scored a boxing match in his life but can find
controversy in a kindergarten.
Some might argue that the drawn decision from March did Lewis the
biggest favour of his career. Had he taken the verdict by one point,
even by a couple of points, nobody would give a damn about him today.
His ambition - to be undisputed heavyweight champion - would have been
achieved, but his relative anonymity preserved.
Drawing with Holyfield gave Lewis something that his Olympic super
heavyweight gold medal from 1988, and 34 victories (27 KOs) from 35
previous fights, including eight WBC title defences, had failed to
garner - a public persona.
As the Holyfield rematch, on 13 November at the Thomas & Mack Center
in Las Vegas, approaches, Lewis has finally found an identity - the guy
who was robbed. So much so that he currently features in an American
Express advert, portrayed as a Brit who was mugged in New York. And even
if he beats Holyfield out of sight this time, Lewis will be that man.
Once the public has a preconception, shifting it is near-on impossible.
But on a purely boxing level, as the fighters prepare to do it all
again, the slate is now wiped clean. The past counts for nothing. The
fight is there to be won all over again and both fighters claim they now
know what it will take to be victorious. The
knock against Lewis from the first fight is that he refused to go
all out against a smaller, older fighter who, despite Holyfield’s
reputation for bravery and resilience, should, according to most
experts, have been there for the taking. And then there is the way that
Lewis took his foot off the gas towards the end of the fight.
"I’ll be bringing my own judges this time," said Lewis, rather
unimaginatively in reference to his fists - did he somehow mislay them
before the last fight?
"I don’t see the fight going the distance," he said. "I realise how
hurt he was in the first fight. They call him The Warrior because he
takes punishment and comes back. I don’t believe he can take my
punishment and come back from it."
But will Lewis this time be willing to step up to the mark, go all-out
to lay that punishment on the World Boxing Association and International
Boxing Federation champion?
"I think in the second fight I will be taking a lot of different
risks," Lewis responded, "but he will be taking a big risk, because he
will have to ask himself, when he finds himself in positions to be hurt
terribly by Lennox Lewis, does he want to go on or not?"
Lewis, 34, is probably the only person on the planet who currently
wonders whether Holyfield might quit under pressure in the rematch, the
words "Holyfield" and "quit" being mutually exclusive in most
vocabularies. But then Lewis, the self-styled Man of Destiny, forever
"On A Mission", is actually something of a dreamer. The "reality" he has
always claimed to embrace, which he told me about in his mother’s living
room in Crayford, Kent at the beginning of this decade, has often seemed
beyond his grasp.
But his supporters will be heartened when Lewis says: "I’m going in
there thinking I faced the worst Evander possible last time and this
fight is going to be the best Evander possible, so that’s what I’m
preparing for."
Certainly, it is hard to think of a worse Holyfield performance than
in Fight One - perhaps the win over Bobby Czyz at the Garden in May
1996, but then it’s easy to understand how the Real Deal might not have
been up for a fight against a faded former middleweight contender.
"I thought he was going to be a lot better," said Lewis. "At some
points in the fight I felt he was going to start his attack or was
waiting for me to blow my load and then attack. I know Evander has been
around a long time, he has a lot of experience.
"I think this time he will come in with a different game plan. And I
realise that he is going to use everything he can to work in his best
interest. He says I never came at him in the first fight, but I’m saying
that every time I did come at him, he butted me. So what I’m going to do
is use every advantage I have, my size and my reach, and not really get
in there like he expects."
The implication of that last statement is directly contradictory to
Lewis’s "bring my own judges" talk. It suggests that despite the result
of the first fight, we can expect more of the same from the WBC champ
this month - Lewis will again try to box rather than bang.
The consensus view amongst the trade is that in the last fight Lewis
for some reason wouldn’t deliver, while Holyfield couldn’t deliver. At
35 (Holyfield turned 36 last month), it appeared as though the heroic
veteran of so many epic struggles simply could not deal with an opponent
of Lewis’s size and power, his rival champion being some 30lbs heavier
and three inches taller, with a reach advantage of six and a half
inches.
If this proves to be the case - Lewis is just too much for Holyfield
to handle at this late stage in the American’s career - then Fight Two
may well be little more than a re-run of Fight One. But Holyfield says
we should expect nothing of the sort, claiming that he was hampered by
illness, cramps and fatigue last time.
"It was just exhaustion, not necessarily from the fight," said the
WBA/IBF champ. "It was the fact that I had a virus a week before the
fight. I completed my training camp real well, then all of a sudden I
was sweating profusely. Even during the last days as I was warming up, I
was catching cramps.
"The whole time I was in New York training, the whole 10 days, I was
always talking about my legs and catching stomach cramps. I was playing
it down because I didn’t want to believe that I was really sick.
"During the fight, I was just standing there with my head down because
I couldn’t push off [with his legs, to get more power into his punches].
When I did push off, I was catching a cramp in the my back leg, and that
left me out there to get hit by Lennox’s right hand. So I had to try and
bait him to come on in, where I could have the best chance to hit him."
Lewis gives short shrift to Holyfield’s claims, responding thus: "All
I can say is that Evander is always making excuses. The only cramps he
suffered was me punching him and creating the cramps."
Asked whether he would take the fight to Lewis this time, Holyfield
replied: "That is the only way a guy with shorter arms can win. I can’t
stand on the outside, looking at him. I’ve got to fight inside, my
punches must be effective.
"The fact of the matter is, you can’t win a fight if you don’t take a
fight from a champion. We’re both champions, so we have to take it from
each other.
"If Lennox actually had to chase me around the ring and I wasn’t going
to hit him, he couldn’t catch up to me. I am a lot quicker on my feet,
moving away, moving back and forth, and not letting him hit me. But I’m
not going to hit him either if I’m doing that. I know I can’t win the
fight that way - eventually I am going to have to get down and fight
that guy."
With a record of 36-3-1 (25 KOs), compiled against a virtual who’s who
of heavyweight boxing in the latter part of the 20th century - Buster
Douglas, Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Michael Moorer, George Foreman, Larry
Holmes - Holyfield must be the most experienced big man on the planet.
So how does he rate Lewis by comparison?
"To this day, I wouldn’t say he was the best fighter, but the guy who
always performed better on the night was Riddick Bowe [winner of two out
of three against Holyfield and the only man to have stopped him]," said
Holyfield. "Whatever I chose to do, he was there. If I chose to stand
outside and pick with him, he was going to pick real well, throw
combinations. When I came inside, he was going to have something to do
there. He wasn’t going to sit back and let me hit him. There was
something about Riddick that always said: ‘Evander, I’m going to match
you in everything you do, I’m going to challenge you.’ He was the only
guy that if I threw a lot of combinations, he was going to throw a lot
of combinations back. He wasn’t going to hold me. If I jabbed, he was
going to jab, too. He was able to match me on everything I did.
"Against Lewis, I kind of felt the fight was even because I really
didn’t dominate and he didn’t dominate - neither one of us took it from
the other. I was trying to get to him, but he just did things to keep me
off him. He shouldn’t be rewarded for trying to keep me off.
"That fight made me go and review my second fight with Bowe. Every
minute I was dead in his chest and had him going back, and we fought.
Bowe was trying to get me out and I was trying to get him out. We both
have skill and when you get two fighters together that have skill, then
you will always have a matter of opinion about who punched who most and
someone’s gonna walk out of there mad." What
boxing desperately needs is for there to be a conclusive outcome
to this fight, that it should produce a truly undisputed heavyweight
champion, not just a fighter with three belts. For the future of the
sport, the worst possible outcome - aside from a second draw, and I
don’t discount that possibility - is that after a similar fight to last
time, Lewis will pinch it by a one-point margin. That would do no one
any good, Lewis included.
If Holyfield were to nick it, then at least there would be the
Feelgood Factor to count on - great old champion, reunifies titles,
produces one last surprise result to take into retirement with him.
Holyfield has nothing left to prove, we know who he is and what he’s
about. The same cannot be said of Lewis, nor could it be if he were to
edge a tight decision.
But Lewis would be foolish if he were to leave it in the hands of the
judges once again. Surely he will realise that this time it really is
now or never. Emanuel Steward should have thrown that chess set out of
the window the minute Lewis unpacked it at their Pennsylvania training
HQ. This is a time for doing and not thinking.
Lewis very likely could box his way to the decision that, with a
little more effort, would have been his last time. But what Lewis must
do if he is to fulfil his dream and gain respect is attack, throw
caution to the wind. He has always had the physical attributes, now he
must harness and employ them. And if he does so, a place in history
could still be his.
But the WBC champion is cautious by nature and this could work in
Holyfield’s favour. When a fighter tries to do something that isn’t
natural to him, his opponent is presented with opportunities as a
result. If Lewis were to go at Holyfield with all guns blazing, engage
the Real Deal in a punch-out that, given Lewis’s considerable physical
advantages, should favour the younger man, then a split-second’s
hesitancy could prove fatal to his chances of victory. Back in 1994
Oliver McCall showed what fate can befall Lewis should he leave an
opening, and Holyfield, who has made a career out of fighting bigger
men, will be there waiting for a chance to counter with something
hurtful.
Holyfield says he’ll take the fight to Lewis, try to keep it at close
quarters so that he can land his own punches inside. And I have always
believed - despite the apparent lack of evidence from his previous
fights - that Lewis would be vulnerable to a body attack. But even given
the amazing feats of his past, taking into account his impressive record
in rematches, it is hard to imagine that Holyfield, at this stage in his
career, would be able to put Lewis under significant pressure. Holyfield
might be able to steal rounds, but I don’t think he has enough left to
be able to take them, if you get my drift. And the last fight wouldn’t
even have been close had Lewis not allowed the senior champion into it
over the closing stages.
I keep getting images in my head. Holyfield had predicted a
third-round victory for himself before the last fight. I keep wondering
whether he might have been one fight early with his prediction, that
Lewis might have him on the verge of defeat in this fight and then walk
onto something nasty.
But my overriding impression is that Lewis, having established his
safety-first nature long ago, will again box cautiously if he cannot get
Holyfield out of there early. Only this time he will do just enough to
get the nod. Nowhere near enough for him to become viewed as The Man,
but I doubt that will worry him as long as he can finally say: "Mission
accomplished." |
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