1996 - "Tyson Ducked Lewis" ?

I've heard a lot of people claim Lewis was ducked by Tyson in 1996.
Citing the $4 million step-aside fee Lewis was paid to allow Tyson to go ahead with a planned match with Seldon instead of defending his WBC title against Lewis.

What is less discussed is that Lewis turned down $13.5 million guarantee offer to fight Tyson before accepting the $4 million.
And this was before Lewis faced Ray Mercer. The Mercer fight did not improve Lewis's value or perceived chances against Tyson at that time one iota. If anything his stock fell with that fight.

Lewis and his true-believers shout a lot about how he was ducked by everyone for years, but how true is it ?
Why was Lewis turning down massive purse offers if he was so desperate to prove himself the best ?

I'm not blaming Lewis. Or Tyson. I know they had managers, promoters and the rival TV companies dictating a lot to them.

But there's definitely some revisionist history going on that makes Lewis the white knight of the heavyweights, an outsider, who everyone refused to fight for years. When really he was as much a pampered superstar fighter as the others - massively built up by HBO and favoured by the WBC, for examples - and part of the problem of avoiding and seeking out easy paydays and pricing himself out with demands for bigger purses.

 

Not a series of good wins. A win over Lionel Butler, who somehow qualified as worthy of being involved in a final eliminator with Lewis.

True, Tyson was favoured too. As Vitali has been more recently.

I think Lewis was certainly one of the WBC's favourites.
And of course he had no complaints when in 2001/2002 Tyson was undeservedly elevated to mandatory so that they could both make huge money.

Yes, the WBC are crooked, and inconsistent. Still, Lewis did better than most fighters do with the sanctioning bodies.

No, Tyson still held the belt when he paid Lewis the $4 million.

This was after Lewis turned down the $13.5 million.

 

It's debatable whether or not Butler was a better opponent than Mathis.

But it's irrelevant because the WBC did call the Butler-Lewis fight a final eliminator. So, they had promised Lewis a shot, in effect. Really he should have got his shot before Bruno. But everyone knows the WBC and the others make it up as they go along.

Yeah, that's true.

 

The $13.5 million offer was reported in the NY Times prior to Tyson's scheduled fight with Seldon July 1996 (the fight was postponed0.

BOXING MONTHLY June 1996 reports a $10 milliomn offer before the Mercer-Lewis fight and says :

"Tyson and King, have paid Lewis $4 million as a step-aside fee so that tyson can go ahead with his challenge to WBA champ Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas on 13 July. Much of that money may be used to cover the legal fees that Lewis's handlers in Britain, Panix Promotions, and the USA, Main events, have spent fighting his case in U.S. courts.

Lewis prefers to look upon the huge step-aside fee as a sign that Tyson is scared of him. "If Tyson is so confident, why will he pay not to fight me ?" he asks.

The counter-question could be asked that if Lewis was so confident, why did he turn down $10 million, the highest purse of Lewis's career, for a fight with Tyson, an offer made prior to the Mercer fight ?

Lewis can think what he likes, but the truth is $4 million is relative chicken feed to the Tyson industry. Tyson will likely earn another $30 million payday for trashing Seldon and can well afford to spend a little in order to shut out Lewis for a while longer.

Tyson himself will not be scared of Lewis, least of all after having seen the trouble Mercer caused him. but he and his handlers will resent being pushed around by a "Duva-friendly" judge in New Jersey. Essentially, they have spent $4 million in order to regroup and buy time before deciding their next move."

 

It seems that 10 million was a first offer, then 13.5.
The 13.5 was reported later anyway, but I cant find the exact source at the moment.
Either way, it was bigger than anything Lewis had ever received before AND it was for the WBC title he wanted to get back.

HBO were obviously backing Lewis all the way. And the Television and promotional politics is the real reason these two camps were avoiding each other. Tyson was on an exclusive deal with Showtime. Lewis was with HBO.
What Merchant and Lampley (biased as they were paid to be) might be getting at is that Lewis needed to build his profile with the paying public so that to force a fight that would pay him even more.
Lewis was being built up but he wasn't drawing like he wanted to, I would guess. And the Mercer fight did little to persuade anyone.

I wonder how much pay Holyfield took to take on Tyson.

Of course, there are two sides to the story. And Lewis's camp made offers too. But Tyson was the draw, indisputably at this time. And the TV politics were difficult.