A former undisputed heavyweight champion has sensationally declared that his win over Mike Tyson was the easiest of his professional career.
‘Iron Mike’ is often regarded as being boxing’s most feared fighter which he proved on more than one occasion during his accomplished yet controversial tenure.
After being raised in a poor area of New York City, Tyson overcame adversity and established himself as a serious contender under the guidance of the late-great Cus D’Amato.
He etched his name into boxing folklore in November of 1986 when he defeated Trevor Berbick to capture the WBC heavyweight title and become the sport’s youngest-ever world heavyweight champion, a record that remains unbroken to this day.
Tyson later added the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles to his collection, achieving undisputed status just one month on from his 21st birthday.
‘Iron Mike’ found himself the subject of many controversies during the later stages of his career and would suffer a number of unfortunate defeats, with one of these coming against Lennox Lewis in the summer of 2002.
Speaking to The Ring Magazine, Lewis recapped on his monumental win over Tyson, which he claims was the ‘easiest’ of his professional boxing career.
“Emanuel Steward told me it would be my easiest fight. And I went like ‘My easiest fight?’ and he said, ‘Yes that’s gonna be your easiest fight.’
“And then I realised why he said that. All my fights leading up to that was preparation for Tyson.”
Lewis stopped Tyson in the eighth round of their memorable clash at The Pyramid in Memphis to successfully defend his unified WBC, WBO and IBF world heavyweight titles.
‘The Lion’ would have just one more bout after he beat Tyson, a 6th round stoppage win over Ukrainian great Vitali Klitschko just over one year later.
