Can any of you well educated boxing scholars on here help me out? Im trying to find out 1. The rankings of all his opponents in his title defences and 2. Who were his mandatory fights? Not much more i can add to that but id be grateful if someone could help me out here. Thanks.
Lewis, for the most part, fought everyone he should have except for Bowe. Dropping bets to Avoid Ruiz and Bryd didn't sit well with me settled for easier fights. Had Lewis blasted Ruiz into oblivion, boxing fans would have been relieved of many boring title fights. And of course, he never re-matched Mercer or Vitali. You could argue Ibeabuchi too, but he went to prison before a mandatory could be forced upon Lewis.
In his first reign as WBC Champion Tony Tucker and Oliver McCall were a mandatory defences. In his second reign as WBC Champion Akinwande and Mavrovic were mandatories. He didn't have a single mandatory defence as Undisputed Unified World Champion because the WBA stripped him for fighting Grant instead of Ruiz, but thereafter Tua was an IBF mandatory, Rahman and Klitschko were WBC mandatories.
There was never any opportunity to fight a rematch with Mercer. Mercer fought Witherspoon 6 months later while Lewis got title fight rematch vs Mccall. Mercer suffered a neck injury and was out of action for 14 months after Witherspoon fight. He returned February 1998 with a 2-round KO but he contracted Hep B and was out for 20 months.
Tyson was WBC mandatory also. Rahman was number 5 ranked voluntary defense coming off his win over Sanders.
The WBA gave Lewis permission to fight grant next since Ruiz was a late replacement for Akinwande. Lewis had to agree to fight Ruiz after which is who he was going to fight next in London (Botha fight) but Don King sued over the Holyfield rematch contract to have him stripped of the belt so Ruiz could fight another Don king fighter, Holyfield for the vacant title instead of waiting hence why Lewis ended up facing Botha. Don King paid Lewis one million dollars and gave him a car to vacate the Ibf title while he was mandated by a clause to rematch Tyson next. King wanted Byrd to fight Holyfield for vacant Ibf and Ruiz to fight Jones for WBA, with Both winners facing off in a tournament with Lewis to fight the winner for Undisputed but Jones vacated the belt and never fought Byrd. This content is protected
