By Edward Chaykovsky
In a recent interview on Michael Landsberg’s TSN Off The Record, former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis confirmed a longstanding rumor that he received a multi-million dollar offer in 2002, from WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] owner Vince McMahon, to have a wrestling match with Brock Lesnar.
2002 was when Lewis had his financially successful pay-per-view wipeout of Mike Tyson. He retired the following year after gaining a TKO victory over Vitali Klitschko. Lensar captured his first WWE world heavyweight title, by beating the Rock, in the summer of 2002.
According to Lewis, the offer was close to 5 million pounds [7.8 million USD].
Lewis came close to accepting but walked away from the negotiations when McMahon wanted him to wear boxing gloves in the contest, while Lesnar was not going to wear any. The match would have been scripted, but Lewis was not taking any chances of Lesnar potentially working outside of the script.
"Yeah [it was offered to me], close [to 5 million pounds]. Yes it was [to wrestle Brock Lesnar]. [I considered the offer] very seriously, until they said he wasn't wearing gloves. They wanted to put me in with goves on," Lewis said.
