- Lennox Lewis has not been seen in a professional ring since 2003
- His old rival Mike Tyson made a comeback to fight Jake Paul last month
- Lewis is set to turn 60 next year, and still trains in the gym regularly
Lennox Lewis denies he is planning his own pensioner’s comeback to boxing but refutes the notion that his old rival Mike Tyson’s return to the ring tainted the sport.
Britain’s three-time world champion and for a decade the undisputed heavyweight ruler explains that Iron Mike’s ballyhooed encounter with YouTube phenomenon Jake Paul in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium last month was a totally different affair to the multi-belt rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury he will be at in Riyadh to watch a week this Saturday.
‘Dallas was an event for fans of Mike and Jake to see them in the ring against each other,’ says Lewis. ‘They went to a big event that a lot of people were happy to attend or watch.
‘They felt OK with it. The boxing purists didn’t feel OK about it, didn’t think it was the right thing to do. But we are talking about two very different events.
‘What we have next is the two best heavyweights in the world fighting each other to prove which of them is the king at the moment.
‘Mike and Jake Paul doesn’t tarnish Usyk v Fury because you’ve got two alternate things going on. On one hand you’ve got entertainment and on the other you’ve got real good fighting with all the drama.’
Lennox Lewis has denied that he is plotting a return to the ring at the age of 59
His old rival Mike Tyson made a comeback to fight Jake Paul on Netflix last month
Lewis famously fought Tyson in 2002, with the Brit winning via knockout in the eighth round
As for the whispers that he is in training for a Mike Tyson-esque comeback, Lewis says: ‘Nobody’s made me an offer to even consider anything like a return.
‘Yes, I started back in the gym but only because I want to be in great shape for my 60th birthday.’
That milestone, by the way, will arrive next September.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk