LENNOX LEWIS waited to prove everyone wrong. He had been knocked out by Hasim Rahman in one of the biggest upsets in history, his world title gone and his reputation in tatters. Plenty picked against him in the rematch. Lewis was finished, they said.
โCan you believe people were predicting that Rahman would win that rematch?โ Lewis asks Boxing News. โBut I donโt blame them. They thought the chink in the armour is there forever. You lose one fight and they write you off. People were asking me what I was gonna do now. What am I gonna do now? What am I gonna do now? Iโll tell you what Iโm gonna do now. Iโm gonna go and get my belts back, thatโs what Iโm gonna to do. But people presumed it was the end for me.โ
Some presume that the knockdown Tyson Fury suffered in the last round of his December 2018 bout with Deontay Wilder has already triggered the end of Tyson Fury. Effectively knocked out, Fury woke up just in time to finish the fight on his feet. But the clanging punches that put him to sleep could yet haunt him.
Lewis doesnโt agree. He entered his return with Rahman โ a glorious fourth round triumph โ a confident man, spurred on by the desire to right a wrong and Lewis believes that Fury will be galvanised by the experience of not only finding his feet against Wilder, but fighting back.
โTyson Fury will be feeding off positiveness,โ Lewis explained. โHe knows he took that punch, he went down, but he got to his feet and then he went after Deontay. He basically said, โWhat, was that it? You knocked me down but Iโm still here, still coming after you. I felt you go weak because I found my strength.โ He attacked Wilder when he got up but maybe he left it too late. He now knows what he can do. He now has a lot of belief in himself and he thinks he can go out there and bully Wilder.โ
Lewisโ ring walk ahead of flattening Rahman was a sight to behold. There was no fear, no concern whatsoever, about facing a man who had shown he had the power to hurt him.
โThe funny thing, and youโll see this in my upcoming documentary, is I dance in the changing room before a fight,โ Lewis recalls about those moments before his revenge mission. โI dance to reggae music and catch the vibe in there. By the time Iโm walking to the ring, Iโm crazy, and youโre in trouble.
โAfter being knocked out, a lot of people will tell you youโre gun shy. Look at what happened in the first fight, they say, heโs going to be gun shy, heโs going to be scared to exchange. You remember all that.
โThey are saying that about Fury and they said it about me. What they didnโt understand was that I was waiting โ from the moment the first fight was over โ to get back in there and show everyone Iโm not gun shy. I will show everyone that the first fight was false. The guy hit me with a great shot, which my chin happened to be in the way of, but thatโs not going to happen to me again.โ
Fury must be careful next time. Lewis – who also defeated Oliver McCall and Evander Holyfield in sequels – fears that Fury โwill do something madโ in the early going of Saturday nightโs rematch inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Instead, he implores Fury to stick to what he does best.
โTyson Fury will do something mad and go after Deontay in the first couple of rounds,โ the former world heavyweight king predicts. โWhen he doesnโt get no glory with that heโll resort back to his boxing โ if it ainโt broke, donโt fix it. In the first fight he was leading on points and I believe itโs important for Fury to establish that control early.โ
Retaining that control โ and concentration โ for the full 12 rounds is key to Fury snatching the WBC heavyweight title from Wilder. But Lewis warned that just because it may appear that the champion is losing rounds, it doesnโt mean he will then lose the fight. Lewis has been impressed with Wilder, even when it appears, to the untrained eye, that things are not going his way.
โFury has to win rounds in a way that Wilder does not,โ Lewis says. โWilder will lose rounds. He lost first six rounds in the Luis Ortiz rematch. But what a lot of people didnโt realise is that Wilder was the first in the middle of the ring, waiting for Ortiz, and nobody really mentioned that. He was in excellent shape and look what he was doing to Ortiz. He was making him tired, physically and mentally.โ
โThere is 12 rounds to this fight. Only when it is over can the winner celebrate.โ
BT Sport Box Office will show Tyson Furyโs highly anticipated rematch with Deontay Wilder, exclusively live on Saturday 22nd February. Wilder v Fury 2 can be watched on BT TV, the BT Sport Box Office App, Sky, Virgin Media TV and TalkTalk TV or online: ย bt.com/sportboxoffice