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Lewis fighting for more than heavyweight title
LAS VEGAS -- The task that awaits Lennox Lewis is not simply about becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
The expectations are far more daunting than even that.
As the quietest heavyweight title fight in recent memory goes tonight, Lewis is being looked upon not only to beat Evander Holyfield but to help bring back a sport struggling on life support.
Beating Holyfield may be second nature for Lewis, especially if he cleverly follows up his first fight performance. Winning acceptance for himself and for this sport in decline may border on the impossible.
Normally before a title fight, there is a sound and a fury and a buzz that can be felt throughout the city and surrounding the promotion. Before a heavyweight title fight, the sounds can often be deafening. But boxing has beaten itself up so badly by scandal and turmoil it has managed to render this legitimate fight to struggling status.
The public has every right to be dubious. Mike Tyson bit both of Holyfield's ears. Lewis beat Holyfield the first time and the bout was scored a draw. Tyson hit Orlin Norris after the bell in the first and only round of a bout ruled a no contest. The much-hyped Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad fight turned out to be a dud. Recently, the Miami Herald revealed a long history of fixed heavyweight fights and following that, but unrelated, the president of the International Boxing Federation was indicted on federal racketeering and bribery charges in the U.S.
And in the backdrop to this fight, and almost every large fight, is the spectre of Don King, the promoter who forever balances on the high wire as the best and worst thing for this sport, a man who makes fights and break fights, sometimes at the same time.
It's little wonder the public isn't buying this rematch, although nobody will know for certain until tonight. Normally, the pay-per-view experts of America can predict within thousands how many customer buys there will be for a bout of this apparent magnitude. This time, the silence from the television people is telling.
That is why there is a kind of desperate hope that Lewis will do tonight what he has rarely done before. There is hope he will dismiss his normally cautious approach and show himself not only to be the best heavyweight fighter in the world but also the most ferocious. You look at Lennox Lewis and see all these possibilities.
"I want him to open up more, show more of his skills," his trainer, Emanuel Steward, said. "If he does that, he can devastating."
Instead, boxing is in its own state of devastation. Grassroots shows have been all but dead for some time; the big event has kept boxing going. But now the big event is in difficulty and there is little doubt that boxing needs a new face and a voice and more than that it needs something to happen that isn't about turmoil. It needs a great win by Lennox Lewis, or a great fight tonight.
At 37, Evander Holyfield's time probably has come and gone. There is no questioning his willingness or his background. There is no questioning that he is capable of finding a way to win this fight, the way he has found ways in the past. But you have to question whether he is the right man to be champion for a sport so desperately looking to reinvent itself.
That is why tonight is so important for boxing. Boxing can't afford another failure, another scandal, another dubious decision. The cynic looks at this fight and asks: What will happen next that hasn't happened before?
It isn't just the sport on trial here. The judges are on trial. The promoters are on trial. The public is sitting in the jury box and only Lewis can play the part of unlikely saviour. A role he may neither be suited for or comfortable in.
For years, Lewis has talked about all the fights he didn't have. He has talked about who ducked him and why. He has talked about being the most dominant heavyweight in the world and how everyone was afraid of him.
And mostly it has been talk and nothing more.
When Muhammad Ali was champion, he captivated the public with his words and with his athleticism and with his charisma. Joe Frazier and George Foreman, first time around, were more about sheer power. With Mike Tyson, it was pure violence and Holyfield pure heart.
But with Lennox Lewis, nobody really knows. Winning the heavyweight championship was supposed to be the goal of a lifetime. Saving his game was never supposed to be part of that package.
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