Is LEWIS' unwillingness to face VITKLIT in a REMATCH part of Vitali's LEGACY...???

What you guys are saying is cool and all, Except for the fact that VK was only out of 5 months then back in the gym training for his next fight. On the other hand Forrest was out two ****ing years and he finished his fight with Mayorga and almost won. Whitaker fought two rounds with a broken clavicle and complianed with the ref stopped that fight.

Point is VK could have finished the fight with Byrd he was in no danger of being stopped, it comes down to HEART and a guys WILL to win. And to be honest with you I just dont think that VK has it in him. With all the INJURIES. I think that if a guy dont have his heart in something it dont take much to change his mind...........You get what im saying.:good

 

You cant tell them anything. The fact that Lewis said that it would be his last fight had nothing to do with him actaully retiring its was all about VK. Truth is Lewis just didnt want to fight anymore. If he did he could have took the fight with Jones for 30 million. To a guy with countless millions in the bank what is a couple more??

 

Lennox Lewis-

"The difference is I set goals," Lewis explained. "I set a goal for myself to become undisputed heavyweight champion, have a couple of defences and retire. Once you become undisputed champion, there is no higher. What you would be doing is basically boxing for money. I don’t box for money. I box for glory and I understand that the money follows. If I don’t have the hunger, I don’t feel I need to step into the ring. The hunger is what drives me. The media helped me, because they said I couldn’t do it and that I was going to lose. Automatically I train for it and I’m going to prove them wrong. That’s what really drives me. If I don’t have that hunger, there is no use. You can tell in my boxing. I will be boxing, but if you hit me, that wakes me up. Who likes to be hit? So, that wakes me up. That’s what makes me box and perform at my highest."

"But from the start of my career, there was always Mike Tyson. Whatever else happened, people always said, 'Lennox beat this guy, and Lennox beat that guy, but what about Tyson?' I had to fight Tyson. Otherwise, the history books would have read, 'Yeah, Lennox was good but he never beat Tyson.'"

"I realised that my main focus was Tyson. That was my ultimate fight," he states. "After Memphis, it was, 'Thank you; mission accomplished.
After Tyson, I had no focus any more. Klitschko never called me names or sad anything bad about me. There was no drive, no hunger for me to fight him, so if you step in there dealing with the money and you are just going after the money and not dealing with the hunger and the glory aspect, you are really going uphill and fighting an uphill battle."

"For me, I used to get up at 5am and go running. As I got older, I reached 9 in the morning, 10 in the morning."

"And all of a sudden," Lennox remembers, "the Klitschko fight was there. Manny was saying I should go for it. Adrian was saying go for it. HBO told me it was Klitschko or nobody. And looking at the whole spectrum, the business as well as the boxing aspects of it, I decided to take the fight. I'd been preparing for Kirk Johnson. All of my sparring had been with short guys."

Lewis versus Vitali Klitschko was an exciting inartistic brawl that ended after six rounds when the ring doctor ruled that a jagged cut on the challenger's left eyelid mandated stopping the fight. Klitschko objected vehemently.

"The booing bothered me," Lennox admits. "We'd both fought as hard as we could. We'd fought and fought, giving it everything we had." As for the fight itself, "Klitschko got off to a good start, but he was fighting off emotion and that lasts just so long. Also, I'm a slow starter. As a fight goes on, I get stronger. I could have been in better shape. If I'd been in Rahman-rematch shape, I would have looked better. But I'm satisfied with the Klitschko fight. Not happy about it, but satisfied. I brought Klitschko into the deep water. And if the ring doctor hadn't stopped it, he would have drowned."

That view is seconded by Lewis's longtime adversary, Evander Holyfield, who says, "Lennox is arrogant. But it doesn't matter. What matters is who won. Lennox busted him up. They had to stop it. Lennox won the fight."

"There's always someone to fight. That's the drug of the sport," says Lennox, "What else is there for me to prove? That I'm stuck in the sport and won't get out until I'm speaking so people don't understand me?"

Since Lewis’ retirement, there has been no clear-cut heavyweight world champion.

"I do have a personal favourite and it would have to be Wladimir Klitschko, because he has my trainer," said Lewis. "He has gone to my training camp and he wants to know everything about me. He is very attached to it in the sense that he wants to be good and he wants to be a champion. I think that is commendable"

 

WTF?

No, it´s not in any way a part of VK´s legacy that the rematch wasn´t made.
No doubt about that VK wanted it, but as we know it didn´t happen.

Just like VK´s injuries in no way adds to Rahman´s legacy...

That´s what you guys are fishing for here, isn´t it ???

 

The average boxing fan understood that Lewis didnt want VK.

It is part of Vitaly's legacy. No doubt.

 

edit

 

You mean after he already beat Vitali and tore his face up, THEN he didn't want VK? :huh

I will say this, IF Lewis had gone on to fight SOMEONE ELSE AFTER VITALI, then maybe the rematch question might give Vitali more cred. But he lost, he had his shot. And Lewis retired.

 

Lewis was old and out of shape and still stopped Vitali in 6.

He had every right to retire, he had just beat the so-called biggest threat to him.

Winning 4 rounds is not winning a fight.

 

i don't know if you're replying to a specific post, but if you're replying to the op then then is really not the topic at hand.

 

:thumbsup

 

not at all

lewis beat him. so what if he was losing after 6 rounds. vitalis face was coming off. lewis was older and had nothing to prove. not to mention before the stoppage i thought lewis hurt vitali big time with that monster uppercut.

vitali DID NOT retire lewis and to say so is stupid.

 

You forgot him becoming the peoples mayor too. Not to mention him and his brother becoming major pin-ups with the fudge-nudgers the world over.

 

Simple logic really, VITLAY retired Lewis just as much as Rahman retired VITLAY.

 

But Lewis beat Vitlay.

Vitlay beat Rahman.....oh wait, he was forced to fight him by the WBC and then cancelled 4 straight times.

Vitlay does own a virtual reality win over Rahman, just like he owns virtual reality wins over Byrd and Lewis.

 

rahman didnt retire vitali

vitali retired himself being injury prone