did Vitali Klitschko effort against lewis convince lennox to retire?

[kendom]

People are going to come in now talking about how Lewis was afraid of Vitali, that Lewis TKOing him with a horrendous cut, traumatized him to the idea of facing Klitschko again

[Boxing Bob]

Yes! But not because Vitali could ever beat Lewis (he couldn't), but because after the fight, Lewis understood how much more hell he would have to go through while training to stay the Hwt king and he wasn't willing to do the work, and knew he could never again mail it in (ala vs Vitali)

[chloelloyd]

He was offered record amounts for the rematch and wanted none of it. He couldnt face anyone other than a Vitali rematch if he continued fighting because the criticism would be too great. It was the hardest fight of his career and so he chose to retire rather than the rematch. Nobody wants to admit it, they act like its a bad thing but its a very smart thing because too many guys like RJJ, Hearns and Holyfield dont know when to quit. Now Vitali at 42 is nearing the same position that Lennox was in. Haye cant wait to fight vitali now that he looks like crap when he backed out of fights that were already setup before and no mention of avenging his loss against the younger more capable wladimir.

Semi Good Post. I'm going to point out some facts you 'forgot' or just didn't put in because of agenda bias.


1- That was the oldest, fattest, worst version of Lennox to ever step in the ring. He had a 360+ Day lay off and was clearly not training. Anyone without bias will tell you that version of Lewis was pathetic. He did not give one **** about the Vitali fight. I highly doubt he even watched Vitali's old fights. He thought Vitali was going to be Golota Part 2.

2- He was almost 38, not '36' like ****** Klittards want you to believe. It was well past time to hang them up.

3- I actually STILL believe a 38 year old fully motivated Lewis would have beaten a Prime Vitali in the rematch. He was honestly figuring out VK from Round 3 on wards. The uppercut he hit VK with in the 6th had Vk hanging on to Lewis for dear ****ing life. Some true Titanic moment right there,

'I'LL NEVER LET GO Lennox, never'

4- Great effort by Vitali.

5- Prime Lewis will have tkoed Prime Vitali.
Ironically, probably not a tko6, more like a tko11.

[Cardinal Buck]

If he fought Kirk Johnson on that night, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have retired after.

[Mintcar923]

He beat Vitali fair and square. He also had him in a lot of trouble in the sixth round. It's not mandatory to defend your title to the same guy twice in a row. And there were no more meaningful opponents at the time...

[damuttz112]

If you consider boxing on a worldwide scale, the K brothers have been a huge success. They generate more interest in boxing internationally. They own their own promotional company that makes them giant paydays with large crowds every time they fight, so I guess they can promote themselves much better than you give them credit for. You may want to consider watching the documentary on HBO about them.

And if you think for a minute that Lewis cared about the division going into the crapper rather than how much money he could make, you don't know anything about Lennox Lewis. This is the same guy who allowed the heavyweight title to be fractured by refusing to fight Don King fighters (Ruiz, Byrd).

Heavyweight title fights were once important around the entire world. The attendance numbers in Germany may be impressive but they don't prove that the division is strong globally. When Ali or Tyson fought, people from every continent in the world was interested. Now it's just a select few European countries who care.

Klitschko fights are sold internationally but what isn't commonly known is how much they charge. Some countries pay just over $1000 for the rights to show their fights, which shows how little interest there is. That's a tiny amount of money and it corresponds to the level of interest within that country.

The Klitschkos are great for boxing in Germany and eastern Europe. However, for the rest of the world, they push the sport further away from mainstream interest.

[B-Bomber]

Did Kevin McBride convince Tyson to retire?.

I am not a big fan of Lewis, but it'd be pretentious to say that Vitali's impressive skills convinced him to retire.

In my opinion Lewis realized that he was over the hill, a shadow of himself. He realized to be getting slower and slower , less resilient and poorly conditioned.

Vitali looked good in that bout, but he was not annihilating Lewis, he was just being competitive against the old Champ. And lost.