Vitali was a big underdog then, he could only hurt his legacy. If Vitali had retired for ever after that fight nobody would have cared, but Klitschko proved dominant later on so Vitali has become one of his better wins.
this fight holds bitterness for both fighters..lewis for some reason likes to keep on going on and bringing new stufff up every time hes interviewd..that is a man that isnt happy about something... we all know why vitali isnt happy about it... maybe lewis should stop creating his own demons with this shite
[url]http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content7276.html[/url] PC: You were handling Roy Jones when he captured the heavyweight title. I understand at one point he was very serious about fighting Lewis, Holyfield or Tyson. How close where those fights to being a reality? MM: When he won the heavyweight championship of the world, he was the king of the mountain. Once we won the heavyweight title, he was the man. It was the ultimate goal. He told me, "Let's go get Lennox Lewis." Lennox Lewis accepted $25 million to fight Roy Jones Jr., but he had one obstacle in front of him and that was HBO had to put him in there against Klitschko. Keep in mind, Klitschko was supposed to fight the kid from Canada [Kirk Johnson]. The kid from Canada pulled out, so HBO was stuck with egg on their face and they needed someone to fulfill that position. Well, Lennox Lewis said, "No man, I'm not going to fight him for that kind of money when next year, ya'll are going to have to pay me a great deal of money. I'll fight him next year." But when I put $25 million on the table, he said, "Let's fight Klitschko now!" Now HBO should have sent me a letter or a check or anything else because I saved them. And Lennox Lewis went in there and he won the fight, but he was embarrassed at how he won the fight. He didn't do as good as he wanted to do, so he retired. So that fight went out of the window. Klitschko might have paid off Kirk but the reason why Lewis fought Vitali was because of RJJ his manager. And now comes my joke:It wasn't Vitali who made Lewis retire, Lewis didn't want to fight Roy Jones anymore.
On the whole he was very complimentary about Vitali. I don't get why the fanboys are throwing a tantrum. Also @whomever mentioned it: Vitali himself said that he'd been preparing for years to defeat Lewis.
I think every fighter with a goal of being the world champion prepares for their entire career for the big fight. vitaly was preparing for lennox (or the top guy) for probobly a decade if not longer.
Lewis needs to stop giving these interviews, he sounds like a sore looser. He was planning to fight for a long time, but was forced into retirement by Vitaly and lost a lot of money because of that. Apparent, his legacy was more important to him then money.