Former heavyweight king – indeed, all-time great – Lennox Lewis is evidently still bugged at the way he gets the “ducker” tag hurled at him by fight fans who feel, to this day, that Lennox dodged a return fight with Vitali Klitschko. It was as we all know a great fight back in the summer of 2003, and Lewis, behind on all cards at the time, got the TKO win as Vitali was pulled out due to the quite horrific cuts he had suffered in the slugfest in L.A.
Lewis vs. Klitschko: Rematch Argument
For years afterwards, Vitali was adamant that Lennox had verbally promised him a rematch, but he never kept his word. Lewis, who was 37 years old at the time, took what turned out to be his final fight on short notice, and he opted not to roll the dice and retired.
This week, Lewis took to social media in yet another effort at making it clear he did not duck a rematch with Vitali, that the June 2003 fight was “always supposed to be my last fight.”
“Let me clear this up for you,” Lewis began in writing his message on X. “Vitali was ALWAYS supposed to be my last fight, but it got moved up. I took it on 10 days’ notice. No champ has ever taken on a #1 contender on such short notice. I looked forward to the moment of starting a family and no more camps. I seriously considered a rematch, but in the end, decided to go with the original plan. Vitali went on to be a great champion in his own right. I also knew that Father Time was not in MY corner.”
Lewis’s Final Fight Decision
So, does this do it for you in terms of Lewis clearing it up, or do you feel, like so many other fans seem to feel, that the fact that Lewis didn’t grant Klitschko a rematch puts one big stain on his otherwise impeccable ring record and on his legacy?
We will, of course, never know what would have happened had Lewis and Klitschko fought a second time, but Vitali, to this day, is convinced he would have proved he was “the stronger one.”
As things turned out, Lewis called it quits as