Lennox Lewis’ knockout of Mike Tyson may mark not only the demise of Tyson as boxing’s defining figure but also the end of this generation of heavyweights, a group of fighters who have hit their mid-30s as the sport struggles to find its place with the American public.
“I might just fade into oblivion,” Tyson said.
Even before the fight Saturday night, Lewis viewed his challenger as the last man standing in his generation of elite heavyweights. “Besides Tyson, there’s really no other boxer left from my era to fight,” said Lewis, who retained his World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation belts.
But the odds of proud boxers acting on their retirement talk are longer than a 70-1 shot winning a Triple Crown race.
That said, what might be next for Lewis? Tyson? And boxing?
How can the sport find a next generation of fans to succeed its aging core audience whose memories include the indestructible heavyweight that Tyson was nearly two decades ago?
Tyson said he wants a rematch, and Lewis did not rule out the possibility. But Saturday’s fight was a mismatch that warrants a rematch only in one respect: People still might buy it. Plus it could be each fighter’s most lucrative pay-per-view possibility.
While acknowledging, “I don’t know if I can beat that guy if he fights like that,” Tyson said if he could get a rematch and “another payday, I would do it. . . . If the price is right, I’ll fight a lion.” If a lion-sized payday isn’t out there, he said at his enigmatic best, he might return to raising pigeons, his hobby since childhood.
Lewis said of a rematch, “It depends on what the people want. If the people want to see it, if they still can’t believe it, then I’d definitely do it again.”
Both of their comments can be read to mean that money will dictate whether there is a rematch.
Emanuel Steward, Lewis’ head trainer, thinks the public no longer has a taste for that matchup: “I can definitely tell you I don’t think there’s going to be another Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight. I see no reason at all for it.”
Tyson might still be marketable against contenders such as David Tua or Hasim Rahman or even someone ranked lower. More profitable but less likely would be a chance to avenge his two losses to Evander Holyfield. The major obstacle to that fight is Holyfield’s promoter, Don King, with whom Tyson is fighting in court. Tyson has said he won’t sign any bout contract involving King.
If Lewis chooses to look for a fight beyond Saturday’s eighth-round knockout, which he called “my most satisfying victory, my defining fight,” his biggest problem might be lack of focus. To retain his IBF belt, he needs to face “mandatory” challenger Chris Byrd, 31, a slick athlete who lacks power but has baffled more powerful punchers to defeat them. If Lewis wants to unify the major heavyweight titles, he needs to face the winner of next month’s World Boxing Association title fight between champion John Ruiz and Kirk Johnson.
And if the 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound Lewis wants to pick on a man his own size and derail the most imposing heavyweight prospect for the next era, he could fight Wladimir Klitschko. The 26-year-old Ukrainian is 6-6 and 243 pounds. Lewis and Klitschko squared off as actors in the recent film, “Ocean’s Eleven.”
Lewis, 36, had hinted at retirement if he beat Tyson, who turns 36 on June 20. Having now beaten former champions Tyson and Holyfield, 39, Lewis’ only other declared goal was to beat ex-champ Riddick Bowe. But Bowe retired as a broken fighter before Lewis could engage him in a rematch of their 1988 Olympic gold-medal bout that Lewis won.
If it is time for a new generation of fighters, particularly in the heavyweight division, it is also time to ask where boxing’s next generation of fans will be found. And how will they be drawn into a sport held up more often for criticism than acclaim?
“For starters, people have to see and sample it to learn and enjoy it, so boxing began killing its future when it went off network TV,” said boxing historian Bert Sugar. “Sure, it is getting a lot of exposure on cable TV, particularly HBO and Showtime. But 50 percent of Americans don’t get cable.”
Sugar and Al Bernstein, ESPN’s boxing analyst, agreed that boxing needs to find a rising star who can transcend the sport, and a better promotional style to market that fighter.
“If you find a charismatic athlete, like a Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordan or an Ali or [Sugar Ray] Leonard in boxing, kids will be drawn to the sport if they’re exposed to it more,” said Sugar, who boycotted Saturday’s fight in protest of Tyson’s past transgressions in the ring. “But right now, boxing’s promotion is virtually non-existent, except for big pay-per-view events like Lewis-Tyson.
“There’s nobody out there pushing the sport for the sport’s sake. Casinos and Indian reservations do so only as a means to an end.”
An early effort to reach younger viewers, HBO’s “KO Nation,” failed to do so by adding music-and-dancers production to the fight scene. That show is gone, and Showtime is trying a similar Saturday afternoon fight show with less glitz.
“Boxing thought the way to get a young audience was to blend boxing with rock ‘n’ roll,” Bernstein said. “But finding young boxing stars is really the way.”
Easier said than done. Junior middleweight champion Oscar De La Hoya comes closest. The Mexican-American former gold medal U.S. Olympian has the kind of appeal that draws female fans and endorsements in numbers unlike any other boxer. A hand injury in training has delayed his much-anticipated fight against Fernando Vargas, a fellow Californian and Mexican-American and bitter rival.
De La Hoya’s skill at attracting a new generation and crossing over to non-boxing fans has alienated him slightly from traditional fight fans. But he and Vargas both appeal to a passionate and growing new segment of U.S. fight fans, those of Hispanic background.
There is good news and bad news as boxing navigates a familiar route between critics who decry its violence and corruption and disciples who love its athletes’ courage and survival skills.
The bad news, Sugar said, is that “advertisers are not big on boxing.” Unlike advertising on contests whose innings, quarters, periods or other time divisions are measured with certainty, he said, “you can’t buy ads between rounds late in a fight, knowing that it may not go that far.”
The good news, Bernstein said, is that “boxing, trying to replenish its audience, doesn’t have problems like Major League Baseball trying to regain widespread appeal as the national pastime.
“Boxing is a niche sport to begin with, and always has been.”
