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Lewis: Lot of money lost with Tyson out
STATELINE, Nev. (AP) -- Lennox Lewis thought he'd seen it all in boxing until Mike Tyson bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear. After all, this is a guy who won the WBC heavyweight title when his opponent started crying in the ring.Now he sees a heavyweight division that may not be nearly as lucrative with the feared former champion out of the sport for at least a year.
"With Mike Tyson out of boxing, there's going to be a lot of money not being made," Lewis said.
Lewis was gathered around a television with some friends, watching with great interest when Tyson suddenly bit Holyfield in the third round of the WBA heavyweight title fight.
"I jumped up and yelled, 'He bit him,' " Lewis said. "I was just as horrified and surprised as everyone else."
Unlike the 1.9 million others who bought the fight on pay-per-view, though, Lewis had a little more at stake than the $49.95 price tag.
While Tyson lost his boxing license and $3 million of his purse, Lewis may end up losing a chance to make millions in a fight against the former heavyweight champion.
Lewis will make some money -- about $4 million -- Saturday when he defends his WBC heavyweight title for the first time against Henry Akinwande in a Lake Tahoe casino showroom.
But although he holds a portion of the fragmented heavyweight title, most people would answer Evander Holyfield and not Lennox Lewis when asked who is the heavyweight champion of the world.
"I've been denied my glory to a certain extent but people still want to see the heavyweights, whoever they are," Lewis said. "Boxing's been in the press a lot for the last two months so that can only be good for me."
Lewis is no stranger, of course, to bizarre heavyweight title fights. He won the vacant WBC title Feb. 8 when Oliver McCall started crying and quit fighting during their fight in Las Vegas.
So he was a little miffed that Tyson may not face little more than a year out of the ring if his license is given back to him when he reapplies next July.
"All I know is Oliver McCall got banned for a year and he didn't bite anybody," Lewis said.
Lewis, whorejected an offer to fight Tyson last year while positioning himself for a title shot, said Tyson hasn't been the same fighter as he was during the late 1980s for a long time.
"Mike Tyson was basically washed up before he went into his incarceration," he said.
Lewis also said Tyson picked the wrong way to foul his pponent when he bit Holyfield.
"I've been in boxing so long I know there are other ways of distracting your opponent than biting him," he said. "Everybody thought they were going to see the fight of the season and instead they saw the bite of the season."
Lewis said he thought Holyfield had Tyson's number and would have beaten him if the fight had gone the distance. That doesn't mean, he said, that Holyfield is the best heavyweight around.
Holyfield was fighting a smaller man in Tyson, Lewis said, but showed in his fights with Riddick Bowe that he has trouble with bigger fighters. Lewis is 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, about three inches and 25 pounds heavier than Holyfield.
"I think Evander Holyfield has the perfect style for Mike Tyson," he said. "But you match him up with a Riddick Bowe or Lennox Lewis and you'll find he'll have a lot of problems."