A heavyweight legend accused Lennox Lewis of ducking him during his career.
Lewis is regarded as being one of the greatest big men of all time. He exploded onto the professional scene back in 1989, shortly after he captured an Olympic Gold Medal at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, Korea.
Throughout the course of his tenure, ‘The Lion’ captured the world heavyweight championship on three occasions, and became the undisputed champion in 1999 when he defeated Evander Holyfield in one of the more notable victories of his career.
Despite his exceptional success, which saw him face and defeat an abundance of generational greats, there is one heavyweight in particular who believes the British-Canadian legend avoided facing him during his career.
Speaking on a resurfaced from The Arsenio Hall Show, former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe revealed the reason why he wasn’t too fond of Lewis, who he accused of ‘being given’ the heavyweight title that he vacated.
“He doesn’t say anything nice about me. I guess it’s personal you know we have a clash of personalities, he don’t like me and I don’t like him and what we need to do is get it on. He has something that belongs to me, I won my titles in the ring and somebody just gave him something, I say that I’m the best, he say that he’s the best so you know we just don’t like each other, plain and simple.
“I think Lennox realises I’m the best fighter out there … I would like to fight him and shut up his big mouth. You can’t fight a running man. It’s hard for me to catch up with him.”
A clash between Bowe and Lewis had been ordered to take place in the early 90s, but never came to fruition. Ironically, it is Bowe who is accused of avoiding Lewis as, when the Brit was named his mandatory challenger, he publicly put his WBC belt in the bin to signal that he would not take the fight.
For his money, Lewis believes it was Bowe’s manager, Rock Newman, who really prevented the match-up.
‘Big Daddy’ walked away from the sport in 1996 after back-to-back victories over Andrew Golota, but would make a surprise return eight years later.
