Heavyweight Champ Lennox Lewis announced his retirement over the weekend. Lewis’ legacy will be similar to that of former champ Larry Holmes–that is, a very good but underappreciated champion.
Part of Lewis’ problem is that he is not American (Lewis is a Jamaican raised in Canada), so the U.S. boxing community never really embraced him as champ. Part of Lewis’ problem is that he never really had a defining fight against a well-regarded opponent. The other part of Lewis’ problem is his two losses–one was to the unheralded Oliver McCall and the other was to Hasim Rahman on a fourth-round knockout. That loss may actually be the fight that Lewis will be best known for. Lewis spent the final two weeks in training before that fight “acting” during the filming of the movie, Ocean’s 11.