Lewis Retires 

 Jones Jr. Relinquishes Title?

WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis held a press conference today in England to announce he has

officially retired.

Lewis, nicknamed "The Lion,"  walks away with a 41-2-1 record with  32 KO's. He will probably be 

remembered best for knocking out Mike Tyson (50-4, 44 KO's) in the eighth round in June of 2002.

In the press conference, Lewis stated "on June 21st, 2003 was my last fight as a professional boxer."

Lewis said that he was proud to be heavyweight champion and linear champion for the last decade.

He went on to say that he realized there would be pot holes and curves on the road to become heavyweight

champion  - that there is no straight road to become champion.

Lewis also said that  "you must lose in order to become great" during the conference.

Lewis only losses came at the hands of Oliver McCall (40-7, 30 KO's) in September of '94 via second

round TKO and Hasim Rahman (35-5-1, 29 KO's) in April of 2001 via fifth round knock out.

Lewis sounded very comfortable with his decision to retire saying that it's not easy being heavyweight

champion and even harder to stay heavyweight champion. If you can't give 110%, then you shouldn't do it.

So he said "he is retiring out of respect for boxing."

He went on to thank many people including his mother and his trainer Emanuel Steward (who he called

the "best trainer in this era. No offense to other trainers.") and HBO.

Lewis has accepted a directors position at SCM.

Lewis referenced Vitali Klitschko and Corrie Sanders, among others, as very good boxers who will

succeed him.

In closing, he said "Let the next era begin."

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In other news, the WBA is reporting that the WBC light heavyweight and WBA heavyweight champion

Roy Jones Jr. is in negotiations with the Antonio Tarver camp to secure a rematch. If negotiations are

successful, it will look like Jones Jr. will relinquish the WBA title rather than accept a WBA mandated

bout with interim title holder and former WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz. Jones. Jr. is facing a

February 17th deadline imposed by the WBC to secure a bout with Tarver or else his light heavyweight belt

will become vacant.

(2/6/04)