Say what you want about Lennox Lewis: he wasn’t exciting, he didn’t take chances, he was too nice, he had a bad chin, say what you want and I’ll say this to you… he beat everyone ever put in front of him. It doesn’t get much better than that in boxing.

For me Lennox Lewis was a class act through and through. As a new comer to the television and boxing media, I had to cut my first feature on Lennox Lewis for Friday Night Fights before he fought Michael Grant in April of 2000.

I went to his training camp in the Poconos in Pennsylvania hoping that he wasn’t like a lot of the athletes that I had dealt with or played with in the past.  When I got there I was pleasantly surprised, the first thing I noticed about his people (Adrian Ogun and Harold Knight) is that they were very nice and respectful of me even though I was a lot younger than most of them. When I got to talk to Manny Steward he was very nice and looking back it seemed  like we talked about everyone and everything in boxing to one capacity or another.  He even started asking me questions about sports that I had played and what it was like to work in TV.

After sitting down and doing an interview with Lennox I came away thinking how nice and laid back he was, but I do remember seeing him bust his sparring partners up even with 18 ounce gloves on. I also told anyone who would listen to bet the farm that Lewis would beat Michael Grant within five rounds; he did it in two rounds. 

When I came back roughly six months later to cut another feature,  this time with Scott LeDoux who was working with the champion, nothing had changed. Lewis’ whole crew from top to bottom were good people and you could tell that if a fighter surrounds himself with people like that, then he has his head on straight. 

I can also recall a time in New York City where Max Kellerman for some reason or another thought that it was important to ask Lewis if he was gay or not when Max had actually seen Lewis with his girlfriend for much of the day. When asked this dumb question Lewis didn’t respond by getting upset, saying this interview is over or by smashing Max in the face with a right hand, he answered the question, made another statement and then moved on. That’s when I knew he was someone special, to not let something so dumb affect his thought process, and just move on.

In the ring Lennox Lewis, 6' 5" 250 lbs.,  was 41-2-1 with 32 knockouts and as a Champion he was 15-2-1 with 10 KO’s. He beat everyone put in front of him and was never disrespectful to any of those fighters in doing so with the exception of Hasim Rahman who did have it coming to him after all the trash talk following their first fight. 

I’ve heard he wasn’t popular in America because he was mean or in trouble and he wasn’t as liked as he should have been in England because he beat Frank Bruno as well; all this upsets me.  What is worse for me is that people try and rank him and say he’s a second tier heavyweight.  “He not one of the great ones like Ali, Dempsey, Marciano, and Louis,” I often hear.  This makes me sick because for one he is A LOT bigger than anyone of those guys, so who knows what would have happened if they ever fought.

For starters, Rocky Marciano was 185 pounds in his prime and never fought a guy who was as good an over all athlete as Lennox Lewis is. Dempsey was a giant killer but again Lewis already showed what he’d do to smaller men; that bull rushed in when he fought David Tua and Mike Tyson (I’m not comparing Tua or Tyson to Dempsey) when he stuffed them with the jab until the right hand found a home.  Lewis is a good bet to destroy all smaller, hard charging fighters.

Joe Louis and Lennox Lewis didn’t have the most sturdy chins in the sport so who knows what would have happened. As far as Ali,  that would have been a great fight because with Ali’s ring smarts, hand speed, and movement when he was in his prime it would have been a very tactical affair.