Did Tyson really duck Lewis in 96?

Yes I adressed it before, it was King who was willing to give options to HBO.
You can check the link I posted yesterday :
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/09/08/forget-the-ring-real-heavyweight-bout-pits-king-abraham/

It described how HBO kept making demands that King accepted, but HBO's director (Seth Abraham) still didn't want the fight to be made.

 

King wanted to control Lewis' career like he did with all fighters who boxed Tyson since he was his cash cow

 

King had a lot of fighters so you probably will but you can't impose stringent post fight options when Lewis fought some lower calibre fighter or where he was the A side

Tyson was King's golden goose and the biggest star in boxing by far, King was covering all his bases by having boxers sign over their career if they beat him

 

I guess we'll never know for sure, but in real time I remember the feeling was that Bowe ducked him and Lennox always insisted this was the case.
I've always found Lewis very honest.

 

Bowe offered to Lewis exactly what he was guaranteed for the Holyfield fight.
You should watch the BBC awards event of 1992, where Bowe and Lewis talked a bit about the offers.

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Their conversation start at the 24:40 min mark.

 

Didn't he have a change of heart later (before the deadline) but the offer was no longer on the table?

 

Yes, that was what Maloney said about the first offer (3 million).

 

Did you even read the story?

King wasn’t trying to make a fight between Tyson and Lewis, he was trying to avoid (duck) that fight — he was offering Lewis step-aside for not one but TWO other Tyson fights before Mike would fight his No. 1 contender.

The judge ruled Tyson had to fight Lennox or give up his title. All he had to do was let it go up for bid, let the chips fall where they may and take his champions’ share of the highest bid … with HBO and Showtime and King all trying to top each other throwing money at the fight.

Instead, Mike (and King) gave up a championship rather than fight Lewis.

The idea that Lewis was someone at fault for not stepping aside or taking an offer from King rather than letting it go up for bid is just ludicrous.

Just admit Tyson ducked Lewis and gave up a belt to do. It’s as much of a fact as water being wet or the sky being blue … yet you won’t admit it lol.

 

I can't believe you have the audacity to tell me that I didn't read the article whereas you cherrypicked some elements and added your biaised interpretation to fit your false narrative.

You conveniently forgot the part where it's mentionned that Tyson offered the fight at three separate occasions (two in 1996 and one in 1997) :
« Tyson has now offered Lewis three opportunities to fight him (last March, July 13 and now next June 21) and been unable to get him to accept. »

The step-aside deal occurred after Lewis refused the 13,5 million offer, and it was mostly done to compensate Lewis' legal actions fees. It's AFTER this, that the June 1997 date was proposed. It was likely a shot for the undisputed crown, with Lewis having the possibility of an interim bout, IN CONFORMITY with his HBO contract.

You also deliberately omitted the part where King submitted to all HBO demands (including HBO having the right of replaying the fight and a rematch clause for a televised fight in HBO if Lewis won).

You keep talking about the purse bids, whereas it's mentionned that HBO was willing to pay Lewis 15 million, one million less than what King would have paid him. The purse bids would have avantaged Tyson, not Lewis, and given the fact that Showtime didn't felt they could outbid HBO (owned by Time Warner) for Tyson's purse, they didn't allow them.

Finally, an interesting quote from a Lewis associate that you totally ignored :

« Many people close to Lewis and his fellow heavyweights involved in this mess have corroborated the essence of King’s claims. “King has tried to make this happen,” one Lewis associate said. “HE’S HOLDING ALL THE CARDS BUT HE OFFERED A FAIR DEAL. The problem is Lennox signed that new deal with HBO before the (Ray) Mercer fight and it binds him forever, for all practical purposes. »

 

So you believe Don King, who is the source of the whole ‘I agreed to all their demands.’ Mike Tyson believed Don King … and had to sue him for $100M that was due him from King from various contracts that King broke.

Lewis isn’t obligated to take Don King’s offers as mandatory. He is obligated to take his share of the purse bid, but of course Tyson/King didn’t let it go to purse bids and gave up the title instead.

Why weren’t they willing to let it go to purse bids? I’ll answer: Because they had no intention of fighting Lewis.

“Hey, let us win two more fights and you can then fight Mike for the title that you’re legally entitled to fight him for right now if it goes to purse bids” is the biggest non-offer in history. It, for one, assumes Tyson wins both of those fights. It also makes Lewis wait for likely a year or more for a shot that is his due right then.

Tyson was given the choice of facing Lewis (through purse bids) or giving up his belt. He chose the latter. That’s the absolute fact of it.

 

Did you read my post ? A Lewis associate confirmed what King said.

 

So your position is that Tyson did not duck Lewis because Lewis was offered the chance to let Tyson take two more fights before fighting Lewis (his mandatory, who was legally ruled in court to have the right to an immediate shot at Tyson’s title) and declined? He should have to wait in line (a) hoping Tyson wins both of those fights and (b) hoping Don King will deliver on promises, which we know from numerous lawsuits that he rarely if ever did?

Nah, making a step-aside offer instead of fighting someone who rejects said offer does not let one off the hook from the absolute fact of the situation: Tyson gave up a title rather than face Lewis.

 

It's crazy how you isolate parts of my words of the whole argument.

There were several offers over the course of the 1996 year. One offer included the date of the 07/13/1996, which was also exactly the original date for Tyson vs Seldon. Lewis THEN refused and opted to take the step-aside money INSTEAD of fighting.
It was not like you seem to infer, that at the start of the negociations, Don King told Lewis handlers " yeah yeah, see you next year ". It was various offers at differents times of the year.

And a point you are still ignoring, is that Lewis had to take an interim fight because of his HBO contract. Lewis could have easily taken a fight between September 1996 and June 1997 instead of staying idle the rest of 1996.

 

Ask yourself this if you were in Lewis shoes would you get tied into working with King post Tyson fight knowing everything you know about his business practices