Why didn't Lewis rematch Mercer?

high risk for lewis. he never likes rematches with fighters who he knows he will have trouble with.

 

Was just thinking about this last night as I was reading an old interview with Mercer.

According to Ray, his training camp for the Lewis fight was terrible and that only the last two weeks were productive and he was only able to train the house down for those two weeks.

If this is true, it would have been interesting to see a rematch with Ray Mercer coming in fully prepared after a full training camp.

 

A rematch was agreed in 96, Mercer was to be paid 100K, but then backed out according to Dino Duva, Lewis' promoter.

In 97 Mercer was set to fight Golota but had to have surgery on a herniated disc in his neck which resulted him being side lined for the whole of 97. Lewis stepped into Mercer's place and crushed Golota and the rest is history. Lewis from then on was focused on unifying while Mercer kind of disappeared into obscurity and barely fought at all for the next few years.

 

Several reasons.
1) Totally different career paths. Mercer was merely a step for Lewis towards rebuilding himself after the McCall loss. Straight after the Mercer fight, Lewis had the opportunity to avenge his defeat and take the WBC belt with it to boot.
2) Money. Despite once holding the WBO strap, Mercer was never a big household name worth a lot of money. The fight was close, Mercer was a slugger, and Lewis rightly thought that "if I'm going to fight such a slugger again where I can be hurt or I can otherwise jeopardise the rebuilding of my career, it'd better pay millions".
3) Lewis simply didn't trust Mercer's people. Mercer's team unexpectedly and secretly had the ring size changed and Lewis only realised that on the day of the fight. 'They dropped the ring size down to 15-16 feet (square) overnight, and every time I jabbed and stepped back, I touched the ropes.' By doing so, team Mercer basically wanted to eliminate Lewis' height advantage and jab to control Mercer from the outside and forced him into a slugfest against Mercer. Lewis passed this test too, but most likely, he simply didn't want to deal with Mercer's sneaky promoters ever again.

 

He also fought that Croation guy that retired after the fight.

 

Mercer beat Witherspoon later that same year.

 

As many have said not much to gain and a lot to lose. Fighting iron chinned guys with lots of power is not fun.

 

Some months after Lewis Mercer contracted first a severe neck injury and then hepatitis.

 

In a fair World Mercer earned the rematch with the first fight with his MD loss to Lewis but this is Boxing and Mercer never got to reap the rewards of his performance in the first fight and never got the rematch unfortunately.I had Mercer winning but can also see why people would have scored it for Lewis and let’s be honest it was a good fight which would have done well if a rematch had taken place .

 

I was a big Mercer guy back in the day and I totally get scoring the fight that way...but I'm just going to be real about this in saying Lewis didn't rematch Mercer because he was Lennox Lewis and Ray Mercer was Ray Mercer. Mercer had it in him at his top to bring a win over a Lennox Lewis, but Ray Mercer will show up however and he couldn't stay in top form long enough to be the most relevant guy Lewis could bother with while Lewis himself could stay relevant indefinitely and that's just the way it is. That's what separates really good careers from really great careers. Stringing together top form nights reliably, not just proving you can have one.

 

For the same reason he didnt rematch Vitali.

 

It made zero sense for Lennox to pass up a Title fight to go back in with Mercer. Had Ray stayed busy, he could have made a case but he vanished.

 

I had 3 friends at this fight they all swore Mercer won. Watching it I scored it 5-5 but now I could see 6-4 Lewis as well. Lewis didn’t lose watching on tv but a draw would of been fine, for some reason Mercer seemed more impressive to people in the audience. I’ll say this much Mercer hurt himself with poor stamina which plagued him throughout his career. Because he tired more than Lewis. Had he not he would of been clear winner.

 

No belt + high risk = No fight.

 

Took the words out of my mouth. Basically Lewis got the W but KNEW the risk Mercer presented after fighting him and would rather avoid it if he could help it.

I will say though, the Vitali fight warranted a rematch much more for obvious reasons.