Lennox Lewis’ Thoughts on AJ & Wilder

[TheGman]

We've already established your memory is awful!

Who is this we? How can i remember something that i didnt hear about till today? If a debate is too much for your brain to take get off the forum,i was debating with u cause i hadnt heard about bowe but instead of proving your point you just insult people,prove your point next time Jim. And my memory is fine lewis went to court against mike tyson and don king regarding them NOT wanting to fight lewis next and also lewis DID sign to fight bowe but got beat in the fight before the scheduled fight so were in this was lewis scared to fight anyone if them? I think its your memory that needs sortin out pal

Gents, take this to the History section if you wish to continue this well-worn argument

I was having a calm debate but some brain dead morons cant debate,anyway debate over back to normal now beetle

[TheLeprechaun]

He got $4m for effectively letting DK fighter Seldon defend against Tyson. Tyson's team tried to force it through in court (WBC/WBA unification fight) but lost and vacated the WBC title instead. He then got a vacant shot against another DK fighter, McCall.

Why did Tyson pay Lewis step aside money then if he got stripped anyway? The way I understood it was Tyson had the belt and wanted to unify and then fight Lewis but would have fought Lewis if Lewis didn't agree to step aside.

So Tyson got stripped for not fighting Lewis? Doesn't make sense as to why he paid step aside money.

DK paid the step aside.

WBC then vacated the belt because the court case mandated that Tyson face Lewis for the WBC title.

I don't think DK thought that the WBC would strip him but that's what happened. Of course, he tried his best for that not to happen.

Widely reported in all the papers at the time:

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-05-17/ ... ghts-lewis

The handlers of Mike Tyson couldn't win in court, so they paid Lennox Lewis, who agreed Thursday to step aside and let Tyson fight World Boxing Assn. champion Bruce Seldon on July 13 in Las Vegas.

The New Jersey Supreme Court had blocked Tyson's bid to fight Seldon after Lewis had gone to court, claiming that he should be fighting for Tyson's World Boxing Council title, rather than Seldon. Attempts by Tyson and promoter Don King to overturn that decision failed, and that crown will not be at stake when Tyson fights Seldon.

Though terms of the agreement were not announced, Lewis reportedly will be paid an amount in seven figures and is guaranteed a fight with Tyson by Sept. 1 for the WBC title, provided Lewis wins a tune-up bout.

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Bruce ... Mike_Tyson

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the following on September 25, 1996:

Mike Tyson relinquished the World Boxing Council's heavyweight championship yesterday. The WBC declared the heavyweight title vacant and said it would hold a public purse bid for a title fight between Lennox Lewis of Britain and Oliver McCall of the United States. A New Jersey court ruled earlier this year that Tyson had to fight Lewis before facing World Boxing Association champion Bruce Seldon. But Tyson's promoter, Don King, paid Lewis $4 million to step aside. Tyson stopped Seldon in the first round to win the WBA title. The Lewis and Tyson camps could not agree to a deal for a bout between their two fighters. Tyson, therefore, was stripped of his title by the WBC, adhering to the court ruling. "We are disappointed and surprised that Tyson decided to give up the title instead of fighting Lennox," said Dino Duva, Lewis' promoter. Tyson is scheduled to put his new WBA title on the line against former undisputed champion Evander Holyfield on Nov. 9 in Las Vegas.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/lew ... 47818.html

Wrangling over the heavyweight championship took another twist last night when Lennox Lewis and his associates were offered $4m to let Mike Tyson go through with a challenge for the World Boxing Association held by Bruce Seldon.

The contest, scheduled for Las Vegas on 13 July, was wiped off the heavyweight agenda earlier this week when the Supreme Court upheld legal restraints on Tyson undertaking any contests until a defence of the World Boxing Council championship against Lewis.

It now appears that Lewis may be willing to step aside on the understanding that Tyson will not be risking the WBC crown against Seldon and that he will defend it against him later this year, probably in September.

Lewis's principle associates, Panos Eliades and Dino Divo of the American promotional organisation, Main Events, insist that the deal has not been finalised but reports from New York suggest that following talks with Tyson's promoter, Don King, they are close to an agreement. Not done and dusted but close.

It is also possible that Tyson in turn will step aside enabling Lewis to fight the vacant title, one he gained by decree three years ago when Riddick Bowe gave it up rather than fight him.

https://lasvegassun.com/news/1996/sep/2 ... ing-crown/

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/04/spor ... s-off.html

I'm still unclear after reading those.

Here are what I believe are facts

1. Lewis was offered step aside money of 4 million and came to an agreement with Don King that Tyson fight Seldon for the WBA

2. Lewis was paid 4 million.

So it appears that they had an agreement.

I don't get whether Tyson relinquished the WBC or if Tyson was stripped?

The WBC I would imagine would have been OK with the agreement Lewis and Tyson made.

I'm guessing they got pissed off that they wouldn't get sanctioning fees if the WBC wasn't on the line for Tyson Seldon?

It seems like the WBC were absolutely bang out of order here and didn't respect the fact that Tyson had paid Lewis 4 million and they both had an agreement to fight after the Seldon fight.

If Tyson paid Lewis 4 million for nothing, that's got to have annoyed him.

If Lewis had refused the 4 million this would all make sense. Are we 100% sure he pocketed the money?

I'd love to see Lewis interviewed on this. Not sure he'd be completely honest. I think Tyson would be at this point. He seems to be humble and have less of an ego.

[orbtastic]

I’m pretty sure he took the money, it was offered right at the start before any fights were signed.

Don’t forget that the events took place over the space of months, probably dragged out over a year and involved court cases, counter claims and all sorts of dk chicanery.

Also, it’s dk here, he was a shitbag of the highest order and his techniques are well documented. In the post prison Tyson vacuum he spent a lot of money making sure his fighters tied up the titles ready for mikey to pick them up and he has 3 rather large flies in his ointment to contend with that he quite clearly in this case figured could make one go away by waving 4 million dollars at

IF you look at the purses post prison Tyson was getting and the huge interest and money being thrown at him it’s obvious the money was in him owning the titles so I would say that it was just a series of miscalculations that dk made on the way to getting him to try and unify the titles. It was largely win win for him anyway as he’d had his fighters get hold of the titles as much as he could and literally put his fighters against Lenny at every step along the way to make it as hard as possible for him to hold that wbc title.

Lewis of course did the right thing and kept on with his legal entitlements.

The reporting does have different wording but I imagine that is to do with the timeline and how this information is put out. It suits dk and Tyson more to say they vacated than were legally stripped for not complying with the outcome of a legal case but the short of it is that Lewis got 4m for nowt and picked up his old title again ( against another dk fighter, it has to be noted) and Tyson went ahead with Seldon with no wbc title on the line and the freak show rumbled on with millions and millions generated for dk with mike getting his slice. The wheels came off one fight later and we all know what happened. I can’t recall at exactly what point dk was frozen out of it all but it wasn’t that long after.

[TheLeprechaun]

I’m pretty sure he took the money, it was offered right at the start before any fights were signed.

Don’t forget that the events took place over the space of months, probably dragged out over a year and involved court cases, counter claims and all sorts of dk chicanery.

Also, it’s dk here, he was a shitbag of the highest order and his techniques are well documented. In the post prison Tyson vacuum he spent a lot of money making sure his fighters tied up the titles ready for mikey to pick them up and he has 3 rather large flies in his ointment to contend with that he quite clearly in this case figured could make one go away by waving 4 million dollars at

IF you look at the purses post prison Tyson was getting and the huge interest and money being thrown at him it’s obvious the money was in him owning the titles so I would say that it was just a series of miscalculations that dk made on the way to getting him to try and unify the titles. It was largely win win for him anyway as he’d had his fighters get hold of the titles as much as he could and literally put his fighters against Lenny at every step along the way to make it as hard as possible for him to hold that wbc title.

Lewis of course did the right thing and kept on with his legal entitlements.

The reporting does have different wording but I imagine that is to do with the timeline and how this information is put out. It suits dk and Tyson more to say they vacated than were legally stripped for not complying with the outcome of a legal case but the short of it is that Lewis got 4m for nowt and picked up his old title again ( against another dk fighter, it has to be noted) and Tyson went ahead with Seldon with no wbc title on the line and the freak show rumbled on with millions and millions generated for dk with mike getting his slice. The wheels came off one fight later and we all know what happened. I can’t recall at exactly what point dk was frozen out of it all but it wasn’t that long after.

Good post.

I guess I'm still stumped at the actions of the WBC as it seems like a pretty sh*tty move to cause problems when Tyson and Lewis had an agreement and that 4 million had already been paid over to Lewis but I shouldn't be surprised or stumped by what these organizations do. It seems like we might have got the Lewis Tyson fight after Tyson Seldon if they hadn't caused problems. Lewis, once he accepted the 4 million was surely happy to let that fight happen and didn't have any problems. I think the Tyson camp were thinking that they would get that money back in negotiations for the Lewis fight since they would be bringing the WBA and WBC belt to the table while Lewis would be bringing zilch so from a business perspective I can see where they were coming from.

[Terry Dooley]

It was clear at the time that Tyson and King swerved Lewis and he had no choice but to take the step aside and work on getting himself a title. You either know this to be true or wasn't following boxing at that time.