Lennox Claudius Lewis was born on September 2, 1965 in London. His parents were from Jamaica, his single mother raised, since his parents divorced when Lennox was 6 years old. He kept a very warm relationship with his mother for life, it is worth noting that the growth of his mother was below 165 centimeters, so you never could have imagined that his son would be so gifted physically.
early years
Already at birth, the future champion weighed almost 5 kilograms. At age 12, Lewis and his family moved to Canada, where he began to engage in boxing from about 14 years old. The start of classes is connected with problems at school, where it was extremely difficult for a tall, thin African American with an unusual accent to find a common language with classmates. True, in the school year, Lennox also paid attention to basketball, volleyball and American football. By the age of 18, Lewis is already a member of the Canadian boxing team and goes to the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but loses in the second round, although it is worth noting that he lost to the future Olympic champion.
The beginning of a professional career
Despite a number of proposals to switch to a professional, including with a fee of $ 750, 000, Lewis decides to go through another Olympic cycle, and as it turned out, it was the right decision. By the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, he had finally emerged as a major, technical heavyweight. Lennox triumphs after victory, in the finals, copes with the future absolute champion and becomes the Olympic champion.
After the victory, the boxer decides to return to England, where he is received very coldly, because before that he won speaking for Canada. Nevertheless, in the professionals, where Lewis moved in mid-1989, he already played for Britain.
At this time, the world went crazy with Tyson, who demolished everyone in his path and did it like no other. Tyson, they were about the same age; they were completely different both externally and in terms of character.
Lewis gradually began to gain experience in professional boxing, having spent 6 fights since the debut of the half of 1989, 8 fights in 1990 and 4 fights in 1991, he won victories in all fights, and all ahead of schedule.
Ups and downs
Lewis held several defenses of the title and in 1984 went to battle with Oliver McCall, but unexpectedly lost to that. The reason for this was poor preparation and loss of motivation, this was one of his drawbacks, he did not always succeed in attuning correctly to the battle psychologically. After this fight, Lewis made conclusions, returned motivation, the most important thing was Emmanuel Steward, one of the greatest coaches, who came to his camp.
He spent a couple of fights and went for revenge with McCall in 1997 for the vacant WBC belt, which he lost in his first fight with him. In the battle, McCall introduced himself strangely, there were suspicions that he was intoxicated, because he was known as a drug addict. In the end, Lewis wins by TKO in the fifth round.
Peak career
After Lewis regained his title, he held several defenses against serious opponents. He becomes the absolute champion in versions of WBC, WBA, IBF.
The champion after that defeated everyone and dominated the heavyweights, planned a fight with Tyson, but, like in the first fight with McCall, lost motivation and unexpectedly lost to Hasim Rahman, but in the rematch he regained his titles by knocking out Rakhman, by the way, this knockout became the knockout of the year. And the battle with Tyson finally took place, this fight broke all records for the sales of paid broadcasts, in the battle itself, Lewis beat and finished off Tyson in the eighth round.
After that, he went to the battle with Vitali Klitschko, the Ukrainian was the leader on points, but Lennox won by technical knockout, since Klitschko had a serious cut, after the fight a rematch was discussed.
