1995-1996 was when the fight could have seriously happened. Tyson was on a tear with his prison come back and Lennox just dominated Tommy Morrison. Both sides of the story: "Tyson and King, have paid Lewis $4 million as a step-aside fee so that tyson can go ahead with his challenge to WBA champ Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas on 13 July. Much of that money may be used to cover the legal fees that Lewis's handlers in Britain, Panix Promotions, and the USA, Main events, have spent fighting his case in U.S. courts. Don King and Tyson said they wanted to fight Lewis before Mercer, but Lewis said he wanted to fight Mercer first. So they ran out of patience. Lennox's POV Yet that didn't make much sense. Because Lewis looked MUCH MORE DOMINANT against Morrison and more vulnerable against Mercer??? Why will Don King and Tyson WANT TO FIGHT Lewis BEFORE MERCER, right after his destruction of Morrison.. and DECIDED TO PAY HIM OFF AFTER MERCER. A fight in which Lewis showed some vulnerabilities that a 95-96 still elite Tyson could have exploited? Tyson and Don King went on to say that Lennox wanted more then the 8 million offered. He's not worth that because at the time Lewis wasn't big enough of a star. They than went on to say 'Tyson make 30-40 million+ a fight, 4 million step aside money is nothing' Evander Holyfield chimes in: "Tyson wanted to fight me instead of Lennox because he thought I was the EASIER opponent. Bowe wanted to fight me again instead of Lennox because Bowe thought I was the easier opponent"
Don AND Tyson ducked Lewis. There's no question about it, that's why the Holyfield fight was made. Tyson felt Holyfield was easier than Lewis. *Edit, seems like you mentioned it already.
everyone lost with this bull**** and it should have been a watershed moment in the sport. instead, this **** has got worse and mma has based a business plan on the best fighters fighting the best and practically killed the sport we all love. end result, a few fighters got much richer than they should have done and a lot of '0' lasted longer than they should have done. fans should start to question '0's and also not write off fighters after a loss (look at some of the spastics on here). think of all the fights that would be happening right now if this was mma. kessler vs froch, ward vs martinez, pdf vs pac (3 yrs ago), price vs fury......
I think it's pretty clear that Don King and Tyson avoided fighting Lewis at the time. King always worked hard to protect his fighters and he saw Lewis as a serious threat to Tyson. The step aside money to unify against Seldon was understandable as Lewis didn't bring a title to the table but to then not fight Lewis and dump the WBC title to fight a Holyfield is a pretty clear indication that they did not want Lewis in against Tyson.
Tyson. Emmanuel Steward has gone on record to say tyson felt intimidated by Lewis since the early days
I think King was probably the main player in this, I don't think he could get his usual career stealing options over Lewis. I remember some rather backhanded compliments to Eliados before the first Holyfield fight.
