An Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury fight would be the biggest event in British boxing history.
That intriguing heavyweight championship clash isn’t Joshua’s fantasy fight, though. When asked recently by Sky Sports’ Anna Woolhouse to identify the fight he would want above all others, Joshua didn’t hesitate to mention a retired British heavyweight.
“The fantasy fight for me would be against Lennox Lewis,” Lewis said during an interview posted recently to Sky Sports’ YouTube channel. “Wembley Stadium. Best of Britain. Let’s get it crackin’.”
Joshua, 30, and the retired Lewis, 54, have a contentious relationship.
Joshua’s primary problem with Lewis is that the former champion has consistently criticized him, without ever taking the time to reach out to Joshua to give him advice. Lewis feels it is up to Joshua to contact him, a call Lewis says he gladly would accept.
A Joshua-Lewis bout if both boxers were in their physical primes would’ve been fascinating.
The 6-feet-6 Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) has helped bring British boxing to another level since he won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
The IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO champion avenged his lone loss in this last bout by out-boxing Andy Ruiz Jr. in their 12-round rematch. Joshua’s unanimous-decision victory over Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs) on December 7 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, enabled him to bounce back from a seventh-round, technical-knockout loss to Ruiz six months earlier at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The legendary Lewis (41-2-1, 32 KOs) avenged his two losses – knockout defeats to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman – by stopping McCall and Rahman in their respective rematches. The 6-feet-5, three-time heavyweight champion retired following his controversial TKO victory over Vitali Klitschko, whom Lewis stopped due to a gruesome cut in June 2003 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Lewis, an analyst for FOX, explained why he and Joshua don’t communicate to BoxingScene.com and other outlets late last year in Las Vegas.
“I think it’s just the people around him,” Lewis said. “He’s never spoken to me. He’s never tried to phone me or anything like that. The mountain doesn’t go to the pupil. The pupil comes to the mountain. You know what I mean? You wanna know something, you come to me. Don’t sit there and say, ‘Oh, Lennox Lewis doesn’t phone me. He doesn’t do this.’ I’m like, that’s silly to me.”
Nevertheless, Lewis would have a conversation with Joshua.
“Sure,” Lewis said. “I welcome all phone calls. Listen, I’ve got so much knowledge in my head, I don’t wanna go away with it. I’m here to give it out, you know, give you the knowledge so that [it] can help with what you need to do.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.