Lennox Lewis defeated Mike Tyson in 2002, winning by eighth round knockout.
The fight took place under the lights in Memphis, Tennessee, moved from the original location of Las Vegas after a brawl at the presser saw ‘Iron’ Mike denied a license to fight.
After a competitive first round, Lewis took control and his work forced a significant drop in energy from Tyson, who became less effective as the rounds went on and was ultimately finished with a big right hand in the eighth.
Tyson won his next bout but then suffered two stoppage losses before retiring in 2005. Lewis had hung up the gloves in 2003 after a win over Vitali Klitschko.
Whilst Lewis has argued that the match-up would have produced the exact same result no matter when it happened, many still like to speculate how things could have been different had the Tyson from the late-eighties been fighting.
For multi-weight great Roy Jones Jr, he told Mail Sport that Lewis would win regardless of form.
It wasn’t out of the question at the time that Jones could have faced ‘The Lion.’ Nine months after that Tyson fight, he made the impressive up from light-heavy to heavyweight to defeat John Ruiz and become WBA World Champion. Rather than pursue an undisputed fight with Lewis, he moved back down to 175 for his next outing.
More recently, Jones faced Tyson – who returns to the ring this November to face Jake Paul – in an exhibition, after which he branded the man from Brooklyn the hardest puncher he had ever faced.
