Is Lennox Lewis A British Hero?

Former Undisputed Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis has an exceptional record of defeating every man he has faced in the ring having avenged the two knockout losses to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman.

However despite being born and raised in East London for the first 12 years of his life before emigrating to Canada to live with his Mother, Lewis was not treated as the prodigal son when he returned to London as a professional in 1989 having left our shores in 1977.

Having won the 1988 Olympic Super-Heavyweight Gold medal representing Canada against America’s Riddick Bowe, Lewis achieved glory throughout his career with wins over all the great Heavyweights of the golden era of the 90’s with the likes of Evander Holyfield and Iron Mike Tyson while Riddick Bowe relinquished his WBC Heavyweight Title soon after his hard-fought win over Evander Holyfield without facing Lewis.

In the domestic battle against Frank Bruno for the WBC Heavyweight Title, Bruno was clearly favoured by the majority of the 25,784 crowd at Cardiff Arms Park in Wales in which prior to the fight Bruno had sued Lewis for calling him an “Uncle Tom” (a black man who excessively seeks approval for his actions from a white person)

Lewis in the ethnic community received far more support than Bruno due in part to openly giving back to inner city areas such as Hackney by setting up a college called the Lennox Lewis College which was aimed at helping disadvantaged youngsters learn basic skills in a variety of subjects to help gain employment.

Bruno however was ridiculed in some quarters for doing Pantomime when not Boxing and adverts such as a Robinson Crusoe HP sauce advert which offended a large number of the black community.

Bruno in an epic battle with Lewis was clearly winning the fight before walking on to a spectacular counter punch from Lewis which stopped Bruno in his tracks and forced a stoppage in round 7.

Lewis’s recent Tweet on Twitter celebrating Canada Day and recently America’s Independence Day where he has homes in Florida and Ontario along with Jamaica begs the question whether returning to fight professionally for Britain was purely for commercial gains rather than any patriotic desire as Britain had not had a World Heavyweight Champion in the 20^th Century until Lennox Lewis was declared the WBC Heavyweight Champion on December 14, 1992.

In hindsight, does this really matter with British fight fans where today they see Anthony Joshua filling out 80,000 stadiums and without question having allegiance to Britain along with embracing his Nigerian heritage.