When Tyson got out of prison in the 90s he spanked Bruno for the WBC title. Lewis was Tyson's mandatory. Tyson paid Lewis $4m step-aside money, which Lewis clearly accepted, so that he could fight Seldon instead. Tyson then ditched the WBC belt and Lewis later won it back vs Atomic Smackhead. Why did Lewis duck Tyson?
Well maybe if Tyson didn't spend his best years in prison for **** or getting beat up by Evander Holyfield and then banned for biting Evander Holyfield, then the fight with Lewis may have happened sooner...
Huh? Tyson paid Lewis the step aside money. It was Tyson avoiding Lewis. If the dude's gonna pay him 4 mil to step aside and not beat his ass, of course he's gonna take it.
Lewis would have pushed Tysons **** in, Tyson knew it, Lewis knew it, everybody knew it. 4 million dollars, damn that is one hell of a duck
He didn't fight Holyfield at that point. He paid off Lewis and then fought Seldon for the WBA title. The question is: why did Lewis accept the money and not insist on fighting Tyson?
No. Most people at that time thought Tyson would beat Lewis. The overwhelmingly vast 99% of people. You wouldn't remember this because you weren't old enough to be watching boxing in the 90s. I, on the other hand, was a hardcore fan at this time. I remember it very well.
Because he was offered $4m to postpone his mandatory shot for one fight, like every mandatory? A fight vs Tyson or a fight vs Tyson + $4m - hard decision. Tyson then ducked Lennox.
I'm a Lewis fan, just to be clear. And that just doesn't fit with my perception of Lewis. It was never about the money for Lennox. Lennox was gutted when Holyfield beat Tyson in 1996. (Lewis was in the Sky commentary team for that evenings Judgement Night card). I just don't believe that Lewis would let such a chance of beating Tyson - and making himself immortal in the process - go for a measly $4m. As for Tyson ducking Lewis, yes it could be said he did. But I don't really blame him at that time. Lewis had nothing Tyson wanted. No title, and not very much credibility after losing 2 years earlier to Tyson's sparring partner McCall. Beating Lewis wouldn't have been a great achievement at that time. And losing to him would have been a hiding for absolutely nothing. Tyson didn't need Lewis.
King offered Lewis $4 million step aside money to let Tyson unify vs Seldon, or $13 million to fight Tyson for the title. Lewis took the $4 million and walked away.
At that point in time, it was easier to schedule unification matches with other champions than it was to schedule a fight on a different television network. Lennox Lewis had signed a deal with HBO. Mike Tyson, upon returning to the ring after prison, had agreed to a big contract with the MGM Grand and with Showtime. The WBC rated Lewis number-one, but BOTH CAMPS knew the fight wasn't going to happen, because Lewis had a deal with HBO and Tyson with Showtime and the networks weren't going to let either boxer fight on the other channel. (Same thing happened at that time with Roy Jones and James Toney, who fought on HBO, and Gerald McClellan and Nigel Benn on Showtime. The networks wouldn't let them cross over and fight on the other channels, either.) Since the WBC mandated a step-aside fee if Tyson wasn't going to fight Lewis, Tyson paid one to Lewis to fight Seldon. The goal from Tyson's side was just to get another belt, because once Tyson had the WBA title, he could dump the WBC belt and not have to pay Lewis a step-aside fee again. So, that's what happened. Tyson beat Seldon and then dumped the WBC belt. And Lewis fought for the vacant belt on HBO. When Tyson and Lewis eventually fought, they were both still under contracts with HBO and Showtime. And that was the primary reason they could never reach an agreement. But, in the end, when the networks felt they'd sucked every last dollar out of both guys, they agreed to a JOINT PPV. Each network got one broadcaster - Showtime sent Bobby Czyz, HBO sent Jim Lampley. Both networks sent a separate crew to call the fight for their network, HBO had Merchant and Roy Jones, I believe. Showtime had Steve Albert and maybe Ferdie Pacheco. If Tyson won, the replay would ONLY be shown on Showtime. If Lewis won, the fight would only be shown on HBO (with Merchant calling it). And that's what happened. HBO got the rebroadcast rights. (Sort of a winner take all.) The only other time that happened was with the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this year. But both channels showed the rebroadcast. (Since neither side wanted to lose the winner-takes-all this time.) But the Lewis-Tyson step-aside fee was basically a television network fight, not anything to do with the fighters.