Ive watched a lot of his fights and It didnt seem like he was the way Frank Bruno was or AJ is today. I figure its because Lennox represented Canada as an amateur.
I remember back then he was popular we were desperate to find our own Ali and Lenneox was big among sports fans not just Boxing fans . Back then we only had papers and TV and Frank was a massive celebrity more well know that most footballers of the time Even down here in Devon and Cornwall people used to finish their sentences with "know what I mean arry"
I honestly think it's quite hard for a nation to fully take you to heart when you have a foreign accent. Especially so when it's an accent from another fully developed first-world country. I was pretty young, but always assumed even then he was 'british' to corner the market in some way and monetize himself.
He wasn’t when he was fighting Bruno, albeit Bruno was quite cleverly marketed as the ‘true Brit’ type and actively looked to paint Lewis in a ‘foreigner’ light. That said he was legitimately popular later in his career. The nation was very much behind him when he fought Tyson.
He struggled to gain popularity early in his career in the UK. Combination of factors - the strange North American accent, the perception that he was flying a flag of convenience, images of him winning Olympic Gold in a Canadian vest, and for a long time the spectre of the massively popular Bruno. Without getting too deep into the racial side of things, it was a more difficult time for Black athletes with the mainstream press. They loved it when Bruno yukked it up about his Black and Decker, but when Linford Christie took exception to front page headlines about the size of his genitalia, he was slaughtered by the red tops. Compare John Barnes' reaction compared to Chris Waddle, and the public perception of them both. Aside from all that, Lewis himself wasn't an easy sell to the British public. He seemed unsure about what his persona was supposed to be; his bad guy trash-talking before the Mason fight was cringeworthy, and the aloof destroyer type didn't really connect either. The Ruddock win gave him a big boost in popularity, but he didn't really build on that and the loss to McCall set him back. It took until the Holyfield robbery to really put him over the top as a mainstream star, and by this point he seemed more relaxed in interviews and more likeable. By the time of the Botha fight, I think Lewis was one of the most popular athletes in the country and a big star.
I agree. I was rooting for Lewis to beat Tyson and thought he would win but I clearly remember most people thinking and wanting Tyson to win and I was shocked they were not backing the British fighter.
He was deemed to be a plastic Brit with many jumping on the bandwagon later when he was a winner. Bashing the people's champion Frank Bruno made him more unpopular and he has a Joe Joyce type personality that people struggle to like. Was one of our finest ever in the ring and ducked nobody until the Vitali fight when he knew his time in the ring was over and retired. Certainly levels above Tony Dosh PPV types
I was cheering Lewis big time against Bruno, just as I was every opponent of that twat Eubank. I took great pleasure in turning my back on him at a function when he was shaking hands.
There was also the weird situation of some of Lewis’ fights being on Wire TV- most notably the McCall defeat. Wire TV was an obscure cable channel that had a reach of tens of thousands at best.
