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Lewis gets his shot
"Don't you want his too?" Holmes inquired, pointing to the WBC heavyweight champion seated beside him.
"Who is it?" the child asked.
Holmes was pointing in the direction of Lennox Lewis.
John Hornewer wanted to change all that but nobody really wanted to listen. He wanted to see Lewis in bigger fights. He wanted to do more to polish his image. He wanted to make him an international star.
Then they fired Hornewer as Lewis' attorney and adviser.
"They were afraid to put him in a big fight," Hornewer said from his Chicago home yesterday. "Management and promoters were afraid he was going to lose. And that would have put them out of business.
"Lewis was like a cash machine to (Main Events, his promoter). He made them money and they didn't have to do anything for it.
"How can you be a champion and have no respect? It's disappointing from a career standpoint. I feel for Lennox. At the end of the day, he doesn't want that."
This week everything changes, the fight, the stage, the venue. Lewis, who twice has been a world champion without ever beating a world champion, finally gets his mountain to climb: A unification title fight Saturday night at Madison Square Garden with WBA and IBF champion Evander Holyfield.
"This is the kind of fight I hoped he would have had five years ago," Hornewer said. "His own management made decisions to avoid fights ... But this is all about history now. It's about his place in history. It's not about money. He has made enough money."
Lewis was stretching in the ring in the theatre at Madison Square Garden late yesterday afternoon with his Canadian friend and sparring partner, Egerton Marcus, opposite him, with his amateur trainer, Adrian Teodorescu, looking on.
It looked like old home week. This has been a time of peace for Lewis, a period of personal repair.
He is back with his old friend Marcus, who won silver to his Olympic gold, and whose professional career has fallen on hard times. Lewis is back with Teodorescu, who tried to put together a syndicate to take him professional a decade ago and couldn't pull it off, and since then their relationship had been strained.
"He is surrounding himself with what makes him feel good," veteran fight manager Lou Duva said. "What's wrong with that? It's a security blanket for him. Him and Egerton go way back. It brings back a good feeling for him. And who was in his corner when he won the gold medal? Adrian."
One of the few people Lewis hasn't made peace with is Hornewer, who claims to be owed "significant money" for past services and expected Lewis to pay him by now. According to one source, the figure owed is "several hundreds of thousands."
"Last time I spoke to Lennox, after the summer, he promised we'd get together and resolve things,'' Hornewer said. "But we haven't met. I'm happy he's making up with (Egerton and Adrian). I used to say to him 'Why don't you use Egerton on your cards?' He'd come back and say `He doesn't sell no tickets.' I'd say, `No matter, you have to stick with your friends.'
"I try to have faith in Lennox. Look what he did for Adrian. He has made him a part of this ... Lennox likes to have peace. He hates confrontation in his life."
Sometimes, Hornewer made Lewis' life complicated. Hornewer wasn't a yes man. He told Lewis what no one else in his entourage would tell him. "At the end of the day, if you're the one person who is telling the truth, and nobody wants to hear it, well, you're the bad guy. I didn't have a problem with Lennox. I had a problem with the people around him."
It was Hornewer who first put Lewis in position to sign with British promoters and it was Hornewer who pushed for the hiring of trainer Emmanuel Steward, against a camp full of dissenters.
"Would he be in England without me?" Hornewer said. "Would he have Emmanuel Steward without me? Everybody in the camp was against Emmanuel ... With Lennox and I, it was about making money and getting out with his health. That's what we always talked about. Yeah, he has made money and won those fights. But it's a joke. He had to fight somebody."
The somebody comes on Saturday night. A padded career defined in one evening of work.
"I'm still picking him (Lewis) to win," Hornewer said. "If he stays on his game, he'll win. If he doesn't, he waited too long. Three years ago he would have squashed this guy."
Steve Simmons' column normally appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail at ssimmons@sunpub.com