Lewis survives bloody battle that's anything but boring
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By Doug Fischer
Maxboxing.com
LOS ANGELES -- Who says European heavyweights are boring? Who says two guys who play chess can't get in a boxing ring and beat the living hell out of each other?
In a wild battle for the world heavyweight title, Britain's Lennox Lewis and the Ukraine's Vitali Klitschko traded bombs for six grueling and thrilling rounds in front of 15,939 boxing fans at Staples Center before referee Lou Moret stopped the bruising contest between rounds, on the advice of ringside physician Dr. Paul Wallace, due to cuts and swelling around the giant Ukrainian's left eye.
Klitschko, who was ahead, 58-56, on all three official scorecards, was enraged at the stoppage, which gave the champion Lewis a six-round victory by technical knockout.
The two giant heavyweights took turns staggering each other numerous times in the bout. Klitschko, who fell to 32-2 (31 KO), hurt Lewis in the middle of the second round and the fight began in earnest. Lewis, who raised his record to 41-2-1 (32 KO), battled back by landing a shotgun jab and haymaker right hands every time he was staggered, stunning his relentless foe and opening a bad cut over his left eyelid in the third round.
Who says European heavyweights can't take a punch? Who says they don't have any heart?
From rounds two through six, both men stood in front of each other and fired off their best shots. Lewis stunned and backed Klitschko up with a deadly accurate power jab that also lacerated and bruised the challenger's eye. Klitschko fought through the blood and swelling and landed his own jab, plus sneaky right hands that twisted Lewis' head around. Lewis sucked it up, held to clear his head and then fired back with lunging lefts and rights -- missing most, but landing some. Both men took each other's best shots and battled back.
To many ringside observers, it looked as though the younger Klitschko, 31, was on his way to outworking the older champion (Lewis is 37) after six rounds were completed. When the referee stopped the fight in-between rounds six and seven, Klitschko was at first in shock and then overcome with rage. The 6-foot-8, 248-pound heavyweight stormed around the ring in disgust before his brother, Wladimir, and his corner could calm him down enough to accept that he had fallen short of his life-long dream after putting forth a gallant effort.
"Right now I feel like I am the people's champion," Klitschko said immediately after the bout. "I did not want them to stop the fight. My strategy was to take it into the seventh or eighth round. It was working perfect. It wasn't easy, but I felt like I was winning. I know I was hurting him with my punches."
Indeed he was. After the second round, Lewis looked to be on shaky legs although he continued to retaliate with his best shots every time Klitschko hurt him. The problem for the champion was that Klitschko could take the punches without falling down.
Both fighters looked tired halfway through, but the prevailing thought from inside the Staples Center seemed to be that Lewis caught a lucky break with the doctor's ruling.
Lewis, as expected, disagreed with that notion.
"There is no way he could have finished the fight. He was just deteriorated, anyway. He would have got knocked out in the next couple of rounds," Lewis said. "Look at his face. I do give him credit. We are big guys and any punch is going to hurt. I still feel he cannot go the distance with me. He has never been in a dog fight."
Klitschko has now. He proved he could persevere in one. Klitschko, however, didn't get a chance to prove if he could go the distance with Lewis.
Dr. Wallace, who is ultimately responsible for stopping the bout, later said that he was just doing his job.
"The first time I looked at the cut (after the third round), I thought the corner did a fairly good job on controlling the blood," Wallace said. "It (the cut) never seemed to interfere with Klitschko's defense, so the thought of stopping the fight because of the bleeding was not of any consequence.
"But the second time I went into the corner to see the cut (after the sixth round), I asked him to look at me and when he looked up at me the upper eyelid (that was cut) had fallen in front of his eye and into his field of vision to a point that he had to move his head just to see me. I had to stop it at that point. If he had to do that (move his head) just to see me, he wasn't going to be able to defend himself in the ring."
However, up until the stoppage, Klitschko was doing a fairly good job of staying at a safe distance from Lewis' harder shots and landing his own punches.
As advertised, Klitschko's unorthodox style kept Lewis off balance for much of the fight. Lewis seldom landed his uppercut because Klitschko tied the champion up whenever he got close. The two grappled a lot in between trading punches and the wrestling action may have taken its toll on Lewis' aging legs.
Lewis did his best work on the outside, often buckling Klitschko's knees with his jab. The jab probably saved Lewis from being overwhelmed at the end of rounds three and four after Klitschko stunned him with power shots.
Who says European fighters can't entertain a U.S. crowd?
The crowd applauded when Lewis offered Klitschko his glove to help the challenger off the canvas after he tackled him at the start of the fourth round. The crowd cheered wildly when Lewis repeatedly nailed Klitschko's body with his right hand while holding the Ukrainian behind the head with his left. They cheered on Klitschko when the challenger appeared to be breaking Lewis down on the inside in the middle of round five.
Fans got out of their seats when Lewis landed a monster uppercut in the sixth round and Klitschko absorbed it without falling. They cheered for the challenger as he held on to Lewis for the final 10 seconds of the round. They booed lustily when the fight was stopped and then cheered wildly again, when Klitschko raised his arms after the official verdict was announced.
It was a moral victory for Klitschko, who redeemed himself from his loss to Chris Byrd three years ago. In that fight, it was Klitschko himself who stopped the fight following the ninth round of a bout he was winning after injuring his shoulder. In Saturday night's bout he went out on his stool again, but he wanted to continue. If he was going to lose, he wanted to go down swinging.
Who says European fighters can't become stars in the U.S.?
A star was born inside the Staples Center on Saturday, and it was the loser of the bout.
There were plenty of winners. Lewis may have finally shaken his reputation for being a safety-first fighter after the way he brawled with Klitschko. Iran Barkley couldn't have thrown down better than the 'Emperor' on this night.
HBO got more than it anticipated, and Kery Davis, senior vice president at HBO boxing, said afterward that the network would be very interested in staging a rematch -- on pay-per-view, where they originally wanted to stage the bout. Of course, that would depend on Lewis' plans. Davis says Lewis could fight Roy Jones in the fall instead.
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