MEMPHIS MEMORIES - THE LEWIS VS TYSON FIGHT
By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist
INSIDE BOXING - 6/15/02 -Well boxing fans, here is my recap of my wonderful. experience covering the LEWIS/TYSON bout the weekend of June 8th in Memphis, TN.
THU - 6/6/02 - Upon my immediate arrival in the early am, it was apparent that the city of Memphis was pumped up with excitement! The streets were lined with LEWIS/TYSON banners, the store fronts had boxing paraphernalia on display, and the Radisson Hotel, where I stayed downtown, welcomed me with open arms and red carpet treatment.
My 1st order of business called for checking in at the Memphis Convention
Center to obtain Temporary Credentials, and to have my picture taken. The
process ran smoothly by just exiting the Radisson and walking two short blocks
to catch the trolley that transported me directly to the MCC. Once temporary
credentials were in hand, it was off to the upper level of the MCC to cover the
Lewis weigh-in. This is when it really hit me that, I'm here, the fight is
actually going to happen! The room was filled with numerous familiar faces from
the boxing community. Larry Merchant, Harold Letterman, James Brown, just to
name a few. The anticipation of Lewis' entry was brewing. Then at approximately
Noon, local time, Mayor Willie Herenton appeared on stage and provided a great
welcoming to the media and boxing personnel and expressed his delightfulness in
having the fight in Memphis and wanted to ensure everyone's safety throughout
the fight weekend. Then Lennox surfaced and confidentially stepped on the scale
registering a massive 249 1/4 lbs. After the Lewis weigh-in, catered lunch was
provided to media personnel. I, along with
many others in attendance, just hung
around the MCC to await the Tyson weigh-in at 3:00 PM local time. As I wrote in
my pre-fight article, the hype was even greater for the Tyson weigh-in. Even
more animated since we had, Steve Fitch, AKA Crocodile, who was boasting about
how Mike Tyson was going to knock Lennox Lewis out!
After the Tyson weigh-in (234 1/2lbs) is when I had the opportunity to interview Harold Letterman and Larry Merchant, both of them more or less where right on the mark with their pre-fight analysis. A pretty good day!
FRI - 6/7 - The day began by going back to the MCC to pick up my official media credential, which included my picture. The line was very long but seemed to move rapidly. Of course it helped by having colleagues, such as Larry Smith (CNN SI) to exchange dialogue and opinions about the boxing match and other sporting news. So now with the official credential in hand, I was on my way back upstairs to participate in the Holyfield press conference, which was already in progress. I did get to ask Evander one question before it ended, and his response was shared throughout the world as part of the media press kit comments. My question was, Evander - If the politics of boxing do not grant you the opportunity to become the 5-time Heavyweight Champion of the World by taking on the winner of the Lewis/Tyson, do you have a timeline of how long you will stay in the game to await your opportunity?
Answer "Politics don't have anything to do with who fights who. I am the No. 1 ranked fighter in the WBA and the IBF. They have to fight me at some time. There is no time limit on how long I will wait. I had to wait a long time to become Heavyweight Champion. You can not put a time limit on a goal." This was the highlight of my day for Friday.
The rest of my day was spent taking in the city of Memphis. The folks were very hospitable and informative in recommending places to see and places to go. I even met a wonderful lady that owns a business in Memphis called CARABELLA's on 2nd street, who was so kind to even let me utilize her personal PC so that I could immediately get my fight pictures emailed back to headquarter so that our readers would have the pictures attached to the fight story. I ended up buying a very nice wind chime ornament from her store as well, a great place to shop!
The night-life included a trip to the infamous Beale Street, which provided a lot of excitement. The street was jammed packed with thousands of people in the middle of the street where you could not see any of the roadway. It was like "Memphis Mardi Gras!". A huge street party!
SAT 6/8 - The adrenaline continued to manifest throughout the day as fight night was approaching. I spent the day at the fabulous Peabody Hotel, which happened to be where some of the Celebrities were staying. It was here, that I had the opportunity to interview the former Heavyweight Champion of the World "Smokin" Joe Frazier. I recall Joe stating that, "You can not count out an Olympic Gold Medal Champion, I was an Olympic Gold Medal Champion and Lennox was an Olympic Gold Medal Champion, this means you know how to fight."
Once I arrived at the arena to watch the under card matches at ringside, I could hardly wait for Lewis and Tyson to make their entrance. I need to point out that the temperature at ringside had to be 95 degrees! It was really hot and I recall stating that these Heavyweights better be in excellent shape to withstand the heat tonight. As it got closer to the main event, I continued to see some of my favorites celebrities scrolling along ringside. I am very grateful for them all expressing their willingness to stop and pose for a picture as well, folks like, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and the one that was most special to me was Cuba Gooding Jr. I felt like this one was a family re-union. Cuba played the role of my Uncle, Carl Brashear, in the Movie Men of Honor, and I had met Cuba in Toronto at the World Premiere. So this experience, really put a cap on what was already a dream-come-true experience even leading up to this point!
And then there was the fight itself, to be there live, less than ten feet from the ring, to witness Lennox Lewis just dismantle Mike Tyson and knock him out the way he did, was nothing less then remarkable! As I sat there on the edge of my seat wondering if this was going to be the round that Tyson lands a solid right hand and to see if Lewis would fall. It became obvious this was not going to happen this night, This was Lennox's night and he brought his "A" game to the ring.
As they would say in Memphis "The king has left the building"...
This night the king was Lennox Lewis.
What's next? For Lennox, its uncertain as to whether or not he will take on mandatory challenger Chris Byrd for the IBF crown.
As a fight fan, I would love to see a LEWIS/HOLYFIELD III fight. IF there is any fighter in the game today that has even a remote chance of beating Lennox, its Holyfield. I feel that Lennox won the 1st fight (3/19/1999), which was called a draw. In their 2nd fight (11/13/1999), this is the fight that really should have been called a draw, if not giving the edge to Holyfield.
As for Mike Tyson, if he still has a desire to fight, his handlers should place him in bouts against the top-of-the-line "B" class fighters if he is to ever have a chance against the "A" class fighters again. A couple of shorter fighters that do not have such a reach advantage on Mike would be interesting are David Tua, Hasim Rahman, Ray Mercer (depending on how he looks against Klitschko on 6/29). With stiff competition to fine-tune Mike's skills, along with more activity in the ring, perhaps there is still a spark of Glory left in Mike. More importantly, I am hopeful that the sportsmanship that he displayed after the Lewis fight becomes common place within Mike Tyson and his challenges outside the ring do not continue down the path to impede on his boxing career. He showed that he has a big heart and there are plenty of "positive" things he can do with a "big" heart.
Regardless of what's next in the Heavyweight Championship sweepstakes, I think the city of Memphis has now been placed on the top-contender's list of hosting cities! They showed that they could pull off a major sporting event. 15,000+ in attendance, plus 1.8 million homes ordering the fight, really made this the largest boxing event in the history of the sport. I feel so blessed to have been a part of it.
In closing, on behalf of Insideboxing.com, a sincere THANK YOU goes out to all of our readers that support our web page by visiting and reading our articles. Its you, the fight fans that make us what we are today!
You have just gone insideBOXING.com.
Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@brasheargear.com