Lennox Lewis is without doubt Britain’s greatest heavyweight, he was three times World Heavyweight Champion and engaged in eighteen world title contests meeting and defeating all his contemporaries during the 1990s and early 2000s. The good looking and articulate boxer has, however, remained somewhat of a mystery and Gavin Evans attempts to find the real man behind the public mask.
The book opens with the circumstances that saw Lewis’ mother Violet leave Jamaica for London, England. It was here that young Lennox grew up. The book is excellent in these early chapters in showing the struggle for both mother and son and the effect this had on Lewis’ personality. He eventually followed his mother to Kitchener, Canada when he was twelve-years-old and it was here that ‘Junior’ as he was known then first took up the sport of boxing.
Throughout Evans’ book he has first hand account interviews with Lewis as well as friends and associates from past and present. These provide invaluable insights into the background and personality of the famous heavyweight.
Lewis’ amateur career is covered as is his gold medal win over Riddick Bowe in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Evan’s covers all the background stories of that Olympics with all its controversies and the reader gets a real sense of getting an inside scoop. After the Olympics Lewis was of course courted by all the major promoters and managers in the world, particularly from Canada, America and Britain. Evans is excellent at showing the wheeling and dealing of the professional fight game and how Lewis bided his time weighing up his options. He eventually settled on basing himself in England the country of his birth with Frank Maloney as his manager.
Lewis’ professional career is full of incident and intrigue and Evans gives us vivid descriptions of all the fights and useful details on Lewis’ opponents. He is also adept at covering the behind the scenes details as Lewis’ team changes over the years as he switches from trainers John Davenport to Pepe Correa and finally and most fruitfully to Emmanuel Steward.
All the dramas in and out of the ring are covered, as are the politics of the governing bodies that control the various world titles. It makes for eyebrow raising reading at times as the corruption and sheer audacity of those involved are revealed. Particularly Don King, Jose Sulaiman and Panos Eliades are put under close scrutiny. Lewis often found himself in the absurd position of taking promoter Don King to the courts to enforce contracts for title fights, all because Lewis was not a King promoted fighter. Evans also covers the fact that Lewis had to win over the British public and press who claimed he was Canadian and the Canadians had to be placated, as they perceived that Lewis had bailed out on them! Added to this he also had to gain the respect of the jingoistic and hostile American press. These are perhaps other factors why Lewis appeared a reserved and distant figure to the outside world.
The Lennox Lewis that emerges from the book is a polite, intelligent, analytical and sometimes jocular personality playing practical jokes on members of his entourage. He was quite different to the champions that came before him and the public and press alike were not used to a chess-playing bachelor that adored his mother who remained a central presence in his life and career. Evans reveals that Lewis vowed not to marry until after his boxing career was over (a vow that he kept).
It’s all here, an extensive and exhaustive account of his key career bouts against Tucker, Bruno, McCall, Holyfield, Tyson and Klitschko. Lewis’ legacy is examined as well when Evans measures him against past champions. The book is full of fascinating facts about many other boxers not just Lewis and Evans does not hold back from telling the reader the gruesome details in his quest for the truth. I found his descriptions and stories riveting and was hooked from beginning to end.
This is a fascinating insightful book full of knowledge about the game, its characters, and history and of course the enigma that is Lennox Lewis. The only criticisms of it are niggling errors like the few typos a proof reader should have spotted and a few factual errors that a boxing fan will pick up on a mile away: James ‘Buster’ Douglas’ mother not father died shortly before his world title challenge to Mike Tyson in 1990; Bruno versus Tyson was in 1989 not 1988; it is referee Marty Denkin not Dinkin! Finally and not as important, Tommy Morrison appeared in Rocky V not Rocky IV. These errors are the only faults however and really not central to the Lennox Lewis story, I was just surprised to find them in a boxing book of such high quality. These minor quibbles aside I recommend this book to all fight fans for the insider knowledge of one of boxings premier fighters of all time.