Lennox Lewis To Oleksandr Usyk: “Retire On Top, Like I Did.”

By: Sean Crose

Lennox Lewis is known as one of the greatest heavyweight champions in history and for good reason. Lewis defeated all comers – at least those who wanted to fight him. Tyson, Holyfield, Ruddock, Bruno, the list can go on and on. What’s more, on the two occasions where Lewis lost, he didn’t allow himself to be swept up by the kind of negative attention that can ruin a fighter. Instead he came back and won the rematches. The man was in every sense of the word a professional. In that he has much in common with the current ruler of the heavyweight division. Oleksandr Usyk.

They may come from entirely different backgrounds and fight using entirely different styles, but there’s no denying both Lewis and Usyk take the job of boxing seriously. Lewis may be long retired, but it’s easy to remember him in his prime. The incredible speed, the power, the ability to make himself the first true super-sized heavyweight King. Usyk of course is a buzzsaw who moves in and out on this opponents very craftily; very difficult to fight and also quite powerful. Again, these two don’t have much in common when it comes to styles. When it comes to having an adult outlook on a very dangerous sport, however, they start to be more alike. Perhaps Lewis was aware of the commonalities between his career and Usyk’s when he declared to Sky Sports that it would be important for Usyk to get out of the sport while the going was good.

“When a guy retires,” the former undisputed champion said, “it’s really down to him. He’s got to feel that push that he wants to retire, but he can teach a lot of the young boxers a lot of different things: dedication, hard work, sacrifice, because he’s been through that. So I would say to him retire at your own time but retire on top like I did.” Only a handful of men have ever known what it was like to be the undisputed heavyweight champion. Being one of those few, Lewis knows that which of he speaks. “There’s always other boxers out there,” he warned, “that don’t want you to achieve that (becoming undisputed). They’re standing by, they want to beat you, they want to be the first guy to beat you so that’s why you got to make sure you retire on top.”