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By Boxing Bob Newman
All props to anyone who has held a version of the heavyweight title in boxing. There has been such buildup, pomp and circumstance leading to the May 18th match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between WBC champ Tyson Fury and WBO/IBF/WBA champ Oleksandr Usyk. The process has included claims that the winner would be the first undisputed heavyweight champion in 25 years, or since Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in their rematch for the WBC/WBA/IBF titles. That win however, meant Lewis was the “unified” champ at heavyweight, but not undisputed. That’s because the reigning WBO champ at the time was Vitali Klitschko.
Lewis would hold his three belts for only five months, as the WBA would strip him for not signing to fight #1 rated John Ruiz. The recently vanquished Holyfield would defeat Ruiz for the vacant WBA belt on August 12, 2000. By that time, Chris Byrd had shocked the boxing world by defeating the elder Klitschko brother, who, despite being well ahead on the score cards, retired on his stool with an insurmountable lead, due to a shoulder injury. Lewis was left with the WBC and IBF straps, which he would defend three times in 2000, until he shockingly was stopped with one punch by Hasim Rahman in Brakpan, South Africa, in the fifth round on April 22, 2001.
Ironically, the WBO formed in 1988 and crowned it’s first heavyweight champion- Italy’s Francesco Damiani, on May 6, 1989, more than a month before Lennox Lewis even turned professional, let alone won any version of a world heavyweight title. Prior to Damiani’s inaugural annexation of the WBO strap, Mike Tyson was the last undisputed champion of the three belt era, making a defense of those three belts (WBA/WBC/IBF) against Frank Bruno on February 25th, 1989, two-and-a-half months before Damiani’s WBO snag.
So, if the WBO counts as one of four major sanctioning bodies in boxing now, then it counted 25 years ago, (don’t tell either Klitschko brother, Oscar De La Hoya, Marco Antonio Barrera, Bernard Hopkins, Manny Pacquiao or many other ring greats that it didn’t), then Lennox Lewis was never undisputed heavyweight champion. No disrespect, just the facts. While we’re discussing facts, it’s O-l-e-k-s-a-n-d-r, not A-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r Usyk, as so many in the media have mispronounced his name. “Oleksandr” is a uniquely Ukrainian version of Alexander. All hail Oleksandr Usyk- the FIRST UNDISPUTED heavyweight champion of the four belt era!
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