Lamon Brewster Officially Retires-Blind in left eye!!

He might fall in and out of the top 10 in the 90's, but even thats hard to say. Mercer was and always will be better than Brewster. More power, better jab, better chin, and gave 2 ATG heavyweights fits in the ring with him. Against both Holyfield and Lewis, their were times where you thought Mercer would win. Against Lewis I scored it a draw.

In any event, Brewster accomplished alot through heart and toughness. He was probably the most exciting heavyweight title holder of the 2000's in my book. He rarely ever had a dull fight.

 

boxing is such a tough sport man...lamon was definitely the highlight in the heavyweight division in the mid 00's when byrd and ruiz were stinking out the joints in their title defenses...has, to date, the last heavyweight title fight i consider classic with lyakovich..which unfortunately was the beginning of the end as it ruined both...big punch and great heart but that face first style did him in.....hope down the line sight can be restored...happy retirement lamon

 

A sad end to a career that both exceeded and never quite lived up to expectations.

Brewster was a solid amateur boxer with some decent credentials to his name managing to pick up the US HW title and reach the finals of the Pan American games where he was unfortunate enough to face a prime Felix Savlon, probably the best HW amateur to ever step in the ring. The 22 year old Brewster was brave against the 28 year old Olympic and 4 time World Amateur champion but couldn't handle Savlon's speed, accuracy and class, finding himself rocked multiple times and finally stopped in the second. Notably about 2 months later Savlon would win his 5th World Amateur title in bizarre circumstances; beaten in the final by Ruslan Chagaev, the future WBA HW champ was then stripped of his title for having had two prior professional bouts. These bouts would later be declared "exhibitions" allowing the Uzbek to continue his amateur career but his gold was never reinstated.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv-skAQzbF8&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
rewster turned pro in late 1996 and quickly began to run through the normal gauntlet of foes for a prospect. By mid 2000 he was 23-0 with 20 stoppages (including 11 in the very first round) and was due for his first real step up bout. Prior to this his opponents had come in 3 varieties: the 1-3/2-1 boxers people start their careers against, some 9-9 or 16-15 journeymen who were meant to season him and some 20-7/23-8 types to give him somewhat of a challenge with the only exception being the 21-2 Mario Crawley... but Mario had beaten precisely one fighter with a winning record and had lost his last two bouts by stoppage (to failed prospect Lawrence Clay Bay and John Ruiz who was building his way up to his first bout with Holyfield). In a battle of the prospects Brewster was matched with the 15-0 Cliff Etienne who at that point had built up a similar record against similar opposition. Etienne was masterful, dominating Brewster to a one-sided 10 round decision.

At that stage we thought we knew what to expect from Brewster now. He was a pampered prospect who could blast out the faded trial horses and would be good entertainment on a Friday Night Fights broadcast but would be found out against top level opposition and would certainly never go on to achieve much. He was, to use the term, "exposed". Things certainly didn't improve when after a first round beat down of journeyman Val Smith he was once again clearly decisioned by the 15-1 Charles Shufford (who ironically would himself become a Wlad victim shortly after). Brewster barely fought the next year and while 2002 was his best year as a proffesional up to that point, picking up and defending the WBO NABO belt and finally getting wins over fellow prospects in Nate Jones and Tommy Martin (both of whom he retired) not much was expected. A single fight in 2003 against a nobody and Brewster got the call.

Wladimir Klitschko was in a rebuilding phase at the time. When he picked up the WBO belt in 2000 he was seen as one of the most offensively gifted fighters the HW division had seen in a long time, using his height, range and power to batter opponents. A clear 12 round decision over Chris Bryd to avenge his brother's loss was followed by 5 stoppages including the aforementioned Shufford, Mercer, McCline and Botha. Then disaster struck as he ran into the furious onslaught from Corrie Sanders and the ugly rumours about his chin stopped being rumours and started being a fact of life. He bounced back with two wins against solid but unspectacular opposition who were better on paper then in reality and he got a shot at his old belt after Sanders relinquished it. Brewster was his opponent in light of his NABO run but frankly at the time the word "opponent" was used far less often than "victim" or "whipping boy", a routine win for Wlad before he could go on dominating the division.

Unfortunately, no-one told Brewster this.

It didn't start well for him. For the first few rounds Wlad beat him from pillar to post, pounding hard lefts and rights into his skull. It was then that the first of Wlad's cardinal sins reared it's ugly head... the lack of cardio that had cost him years back against Ross Purity. He started to slow down and Brewster, a fighter who's heart had never been questioned, came on leading to a sensational 5th round knockout of the favoured fighter. Wlad lessened the win slightly by presenting a bizarre story of him being drugged prior to the bout but nothing could take away what Brewster had done.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFDs5mT4JUs&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
It's here that Brewster finally hit his stride. While Purity had returned to his journeyman status and Sanders had fizzled once they beat Wlad, Brewster exploded. He looked better than he'd ever looked and put on hugely entertaining bouts in a close war with Kali Meehan, a first round demolition of temperamental Pole Golota and another war with Krasniqi when he was down on the cards.

Then it ended.

"The White Wolf" Siarhei Liakhovich was a highly touted prospect. Early in his career he'd taken out fellow "can't miss" fighter Friday Ahunanya and while a TKO loss to future Thunderbox champion Maurice Harris had slowed his momentum he'd picked it back up and got his shot off the back of a clear win over the at the time still rated Dominick Guinn.

For 12 rounds him a Brewster went to war. It was the best HW title fight we'd seen in years... and still remains that today. Brewster put Liakhovich down to a knee in the 7th but the White Wolf just had that little bit more, that little bit too much and won the decision. The fight ruined both men. The White Wolf went on to lose the title to Shannon Briggs in his next fight... leading on all the cards he decided to slug it out in the 12th giving Briggs his only chance of winning... a chance Briggs gladly took. Looking a shadow of his former self he went on to be outclassed by Valuev and is only now starting to look how he once was.

The damage to Brewster was more obvious.

It came out that with virtually the first punch of the bout Liakhovich had nearly torn Brewster's eye to pieces, detaching his retina. For those 12 rounds Brewster was half blind, in agony and with no depth perception. No-one would have judged him if he had simply waved it off... but Brewster with more heart than brains hung in there. The fact he had more heart than brains was even more apparent in his next bout.

After a year off for surgery and his eye to heal he headed into a rematch with Wlad. Wlad had adapted his style and was starting the run that continues to this day. He'd overcome the fury of Peter and battered everyone else who dared step into the ring with him. He was sharp, dangerous and now far smarter. Brewster was slow, undertrained and rusty.

There was no Rocky story the second time. Wlad splattered him across the canvas in the way he was meant to in their first bout until Buddy McGirt mercifully called off the execution after 6 rounds. A dispirited Brewster afterwards said what we all knew... he simply wasn't ready for Wlad at that time. Tragically for us, he never would be.

Another year out beckoned with Brewster changing over to German promotion. Two wins over poor opposition (punching bag to the stars Danny Batchelder and UK domestic feature Sprott) at least gave him his pride back but it was once again taken away by a close defeat to Oloukun and a one-sided beating by Helenius. With his eye now virtually gone for good Brewster retires. I dislike the way he's tried to discredit Helenius's win in the same way Wlad did his... for the duration of the fight Helenius was pounding punches off his face and far more likely one of them did the damage than some foreign substance or trickery with the gloves although in boxing you never know.

So what to say about Brewster? For a while he looked like so many other fighters... a touted prospect who simply wasn't good enough against top level opposition. For a while he looked like so few other boxers... a legitimate world champion who was also exciting. Then at the very height of his reign the injury that would eventually retire him struck him down. Who knows where he'd be if not for that detached retina. Perhaps it would have been best if he'd retired then, slightly poorer but able to look back at his bout with the White Wolf as a fitting epitaph to what he'd accomplished. Instead he fought on but his legacy remains and I will still look fondly back at it.

So here's to Brewster. The last champ to really bring excitement to a division that's been lacking it, a god damn honest hard working HW who never knew when to quit.

 

Sergei Liakhovich vs. Lamon Brewster (Highlights)
the last great hw fight
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjuXgo8icuE[/ame]

 

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Lamon is a great guy! I wish him all the best in his life after boxing!
Thanks for many great fights!

 

That is terrible, hopefully everything works out for him and he dont have money or other problems in addition to his eye