July 15, 2000: Lewis vanquishes Botha

After a very easy fight over the hyped Mike Grant, Lewis could have picked a better opponent, say Oleg Maskeav, Chris Byrd, or Corrie Sanders.

Botha was always game, but limited. A very safe choice. Lewis did what a top champion is supposed to do with an inferior opponent. End it quickly.

 

In the space of a year Lewis fought 4 men ranked in the top ten.Holyfield Grant,Tua,Rahman,and Botha. I've no problem giving him pass for the Botha fight. Lennox wasn't fattening his record against the likes of Pianetta,Charr,Wach,Solis,Briggs,Sosnowski,Williams.

 

ah i get you, picking two guys who beat the K bros.

Just cos they beat them, dont mean they were good candidates for Lennox. Neither of them made good contenders.

 

This was the stage in Lewis's career where he seemed to really come into his own and be at his best. Botha wasn't a great challenger but would give most a much tougher test then he gave Lewis who simply destroyed him.

 

How they got to Lewis-Botha was a mess.

After spending all of 1999 fighting Evander Holyfield and unifying, Lennox Lewis was supposed to fight three mandatories in 2000. Originally, a plan was drawn out to fight Akinwande again (WBA), Ibeabuchi (WBC), and Tua (IBF).

The WBC wanted Ibeabuchi to fight Michael Grant at the end of 1999 in a final eliminator, but Ibeabuchi went insane, beat a woman and nearly killed a kid riding in a car with him when Ike tried to commit suicide by crashing the car, so Ibeabuchi was scratched.

Grant fought Golota instead and came from behind to win. So Grant seemed to be in place for a title shot. HBO was really hyping Grant and Ibeabuchi at the time. If HBO couldn't get Lewis-Ibeabuchi, they wanted Lewis-Grant.

Lewis didn't have a problem with that.

Lewis and Holyfield both agreed to fight the WBA mandatory immediately after unifying. Lewis won, so he was supposed to defend. But Lewis and his team knew Akinwande had hepatitis, because Akinwande failed a test when Holyfield was supposed to defend against him previously.

When the WBA said Lewis had to fight a rematch Akinwande, Lewis said no because Akinwande had hepatitis, which was confirmed. So Lewis signed to fight Grant.

After Lewis signed to fight Grant and HBO announced it would be a big PPV, the WBA switched courses, dropped Akinwande, and said John Ruiz (the NABF champ) was their new #1 and Lewis had to fight him.

The WBA said Lewis and Holyfield signed a contract to fight the WBA mandatory, not anyone in particular. So Lewis still had to fight who the WBA said was their mandatory, and they said their new mando was Ruiz.

The WBA also said Lewis had to back out of the Grant fight and take on Ruiz, or they would strip Lewis and name Ruiz their new champ.

Since the Lewis-Grant fight was quickly approaching, Lennox said no and SUED the WBA. (Major plotpoint here.)

David Tua, who had beaten Rahman in an eliminator in 1998, then Sued Lewis claiming he had been waiting more than a year and he should get the first shot - since Grant and Ruiz got their title positions after him. Tua went to court, but a judge said he was young and he could wait a few more months.

Then the WBC (Sulaiman) took the odd step of (after dropping Ibeabuchi from the ratings because he was looking at a long prison term) naming John Ruiz their #1 contender, too, and the WBC left Grant at #2, even though he had beaten Golota and signed to fight for the title.

So Ruiz was rated #1 by the WBA and #1 by the WBC. Tua (who had wasted Ruiz in 19 seconds a few years earlier) was rated #1 by the IBF. Grant was #2 in the WBC and had a contract with Lewis. Holyfield was #2 in the WBA (and his last two fights had come against Lewis).

After hearing the WBA planned to just "give" the WBA belt to Ruiz, Holyfield sued the WBA. The WBA had come up with a new "points" system to rate fighters, where you received points for fighting WBA contenders, fighting for WBA regional belts and world titles. They said Ruiz had accumulated enough points to be ranked first. Holyfield couldn't understand how Ruiz got more points for fighting for NABF belts than Evander did for world titles, so he called "bull" on the WBA.

Since it appeared Lewis was going ahead with the Grant fight and Lewis' suit against the WBA hadn't come before a judge yet, Don King, who promoted both Ruiz and Holyfield, said Ruiz and Holyfield would fight in an "eliminator" to see who would fight the Lewis-Grant winner next.

When Lewis' team got word, they weren't thrilled with fighting Evander for a third time. They wanted to move on. So Lennox Lewis' team called Ruiz's manager and promised they would defend the world title against John Ruiz in England in July (after the Grant fight) if Ruiz just didn't fight Holyfield.

Ruiz's manager agreed. Don King was furious. And the problem appeared to be solved.

THEN, about 10 days before the Lewis-Grant fight, THE JUDGE assigned to the case when Lewis SUED the WBA decided that the WBA was within its rights to name a new mandatory. And since Lewis had agreed to fight the WBA mandatory, not Henry Akinwande in particular, the JUDGE SAID LEWIS HAD TO FIGHT THE WBA MANDATORY FIRST. Not Grant.

So Lewis, by filing the suit against the WBA, kind of shot himself in the foot.

Even though Ruiz and his manager had agreed to fight Lewis in England next, nobody at the time was sure Lewis would beat Grant (at the time, Grant was considered a dangerous opponent).

Not wanting to fight with Don King or the WBA, Ruiz went along and agreed to proceed with the Holyfield fight for the vacant title, which was held in August. (And Ruiz appeared to win, even though Evander got the decision.)

So, after Lewis destroyed Grant, he'd promised to fight in England. Tua didn't want to fight there and they were scheduled to fight later that year in Vegas. Ruiz and Holyfield were the next available contenders, but they were fighting each other for a vacant belt. Mike Tyson was in the midst of a chaotic period and was preparing to fight Savarese in Glasgow. But a Lewis-Tyson fight seemed too big for England. Vitali Klitschko had just lost the WBO belt to Byrd on an injured shoulder. But Byrd wasn't allowed to fight for anyone but Klitschko's promoter (who had the rights to Byrd's next couple fights).

Wlad Klitschko was the next top prospect and rising contender. But Klitschko's promoter wasn't sure Vitali would be healed quickly enough to rematch with Byrd and he wanted Wlad to be available to fight Byrd and take the title back if Vitali wasn't. As it was, Wlad fought on the Lewis undercard in England against Monte Barrett.

So, based on his draw with Shannon Briggs a few months earlier, Botha got the nod as the late replacement. Many thought Botha had done enough to win that fight, which was held in Atlantic City, and was viewed going in as a showcase for Briggs.

And, after Lewis and Wlad both won in England, they agreed to appear together in the film Ocean's Eleven. Lewis went on to beat Tua and Wlad beat Byrd to win the WBO belt.

And their staged fight in Ocean's Eleven was as close as they ever got to fighting in the ring.

 

Oleg Masaev would've been ideal. He was coming off a win over Derrick Jefferson on HBO in May. Sanders wasn't an option. Hasim Rahman stopped Sanders on the Maskaev card.

Chris Byrd had just upset Vitali, but Vitali's promoter had the rights to Byrd fights (when he scored the upset). If Vitali had recovered quickly enough, they would've rematched for the title. Since Vitali required surgery, Wlad took his brother's place and beat Byrd.

Had Lewis fought Oleg, though, I doubt Oleg would've lasted longer than Botha.

 

Maybe Lennox Lewis should've fought John Ruiz instead.Just to stop the boredom that was John Ruiz. John Ruiz still claims to this day that Lennox Lewis ducked him.

 

I can't believe a thread on a fight as insignificant as Lewis-Botha is still puttering on. Botha did not have even the smallest chance of winning that fight.

 

Strangely enough, Botha was considered better than Ruiz until the Holy fights.

 

Seems like 50% of the replies have a reference to the K bros, thought I was in the god damn general for a hot second.

 

Actually, he should have been a 5X bigger underdog than Buster was against Tyson. Lewis held every single advantage over Botha (Size, height, reach, speed, power, quickness, skill, experience). Buster was almost six inches taller than Tyson and had an incredible 12 inch reach advantage over Tyson. He also had a bigger frame than Tyson and great boxing skills, including a fantastic jab to employ his height and reach advantage. Buster beat better fighters than Botha ever did. (Including a fighter who knocked Lennox Lewis out in 2 rounds). Although, at the time, I still expected Tyson to overcome Buster's considerable size advantage, in retrospect, the odds for Tyson-Douglas were preposterous.

If the odds for Lewis-Botha were any closer than the odds for Tyson-Douglas, it says a lot about how vulnerable contemporary oddsmakers believed Lewis was. Botha was a glorified club fighter with some heart. Nothing more. His skillset (and power) were nowhere near that of Douglas. Botha had literally 0.0% chance of winning that fight. And you can confirm that percentage with Dean Vernon Wormer.