Getting his due

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003 | 10:01 a.m.

Unfailingly agreeable and cordial, Hedgemon Lewis has made a lifetime of friends in and out of boxing.

A staple at the Nevada Partners gym, he routinely greets fighters and acquaintances alike with a warm hug and genteel handshake. But even those who know him fairly well and appreciate his personable traits are unlikely to realize the degree and depth of his wide and varied experiences.

The fact that he will be inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in Los Angeles on Aug. 23 only adds to his stature, reputation and lore.

"I've done the best I could in boxing," he said this week, sitting, as he frequently does, on a folding chair in the current gym of his choice. "I've had fun. I've had a ball. I got to travel and I met a lot of people."

Did he ever.

As a fighter and later as a promoter and most recently as a trainer, Lewis has shared the good times with countless celebrities and stars. One of whom, actor Ryan O'Neal, is the roundabout reason Lewis has called Las Vegas home for almost 18 years.

But tracing their relationship requires backtracking 37 years to when O'Neal was part of a Hollywood syndicate that was interested in acquiring fighters. Bill Cosby and Robert Goulet were among those in the group who asked famed trainer Eddie Futch to "find them a good heavyweight," according to Lewis.

Futch, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, was visiting his mother in his native Detroit and checking out the gyms there when he came across Lewis, a welterweight who was 8-0 when they met.

"Eddie called the guys back in Hollywood and said 'I didn't find you a heavyweight, but I found you a fighter who can fight,' " Lewis said.

When Futch returned to LA, Lewis was with him.

Lewis made his West Coast debut at the Olympic Auditorium at the age of 20 and was en route to a career that would include three world-title fights and 56 wins in 64 bouts. He never won a world championship yet he was quickly thrust into a championship lifestyle.

"I was born in Alabama and was just a ghetto boy from Detroit," he said. "But here I was living in Hollywood and hanging with these big stars.

"I'd go to the clubs on Sunset Boulevard, like the Roxy, with Ryan. We'd get into the private part of the club upstairs ... it was always great fun.

"I had a condo in Malibu and was on top of the world. I was just a fighter trying to be the best I could be and doing what I wanted with my life, and there were lots of other interesting things going on.

"Those were great times ... they don't get much better."

This ascension to stardom and Hollywood's inner circle was quite a jump for a young man who only reluctantly confessed to his mother that he had become a professional fighter.

"My mother never knew I was a fighter until someone told her, 'I saw your son fight and he's pretty good,' " Lewis said. "When I was a kid and training at the local rec center in Detroit, I'd come home from school and get my boxing stuff that I hid under the bed.

"My mother would ask me, 'Where are you going?' and I'd say I was going to study even though I was going to the gym."

Lewis, now 57, laughs at the recollection.

"When she found out I was a boxer, let's just say she 'allowed' me to do it," he said. "But really, there's nothing she could have done to stop me. I was going to do it.

"But I made a commitment to her that I would quit when I turned 30."

Once his career choice was out in the open, Lewis began sharing his income with his family. "The first time I ever made any real money as a fighter I bought a house for my mother before I bought myself a car," he said.

He also helped pay for a sister -- one of four in his family -- to go to college and she continues to be a teacher today.

As his career took off and his record improved, Lewis naturally fell in line for what would be a series of title fights. The first of which, with welterweight champion Jose Napoles, was Dec. 14, 1971 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

"There weren't any knockdowns but it was a good fight," he said, although he lost a 15-round decision by 5, 2 and 1 points on the judges' cards. "I could have won and it was close, close enough that it eventually led to a rematch."

The rematch, Aug. 3, 1974 in Napoles' native Mexico City, had its clandestine characteristics.

"The fight was supposed to be in Acapulco, which is at sea level," Lewis said. "About a week before the fight I was still in LA training when a guy came in and said the fight had been moved to Mexico City, which is at (a higher) altitude.

"So we get down there on one week's notice and I weigh-in at 141 pounds (for a fight with a 147-pound limit). I couldn't believe I was so light. I was thinking I had to be sick or something.

"Napoles weighed 147 and then put on some weight by fight time, but I still weighed 141. I wasn't as strong as I should have been."

Lewis lost that fight by ninth-round knockout.

His third championship fight was two years later and followed a draw with famed slugger Carlos Palomino. That led to a fight with England's John Stracey, who had beaten Napoles in 1975.

Lewis and Stracey met March 20, 1976 in Wembley, England, and the reigning champion won by 10th-round knockout.

"I lost that fight and was 30 years old, so I kept my commitment to my mother and quit," Lewis said.

Three years later Lewis served as a technical adviser for the movie "The Main Event," a light comedy featuring O'Neal as a fighter and Barbra Streisand as a cosmetic exec.

Lewis also promoted six boxing cards at the old Shrine Auditorium in LA, sold real estate and served as a gang counselor for the city before another career-altering coincidence brought him to Las Vegas and a second, even closer association with Futch.

"I came up to Vegas with Ryan for a movie he was doing in 1984," Lewis said. "I stayed about a month and really enjoyed myself. I won some money at craps and ran into Eddie, who was living here and going it alone.

"I loved Eddie; he was like a father, a grandfather. And I thought, 'I kind of like it here,' so I stayed."

Lewis and his wife, who remain friendly, had separated by then and Lewis was on good financial footing. "Ryan had hooked me up with his accountant and I'd bought a couple of apartment buildings and had my real-estate license, so things were fine," he said of the background circumstances in his life as he moved to Las Vegas.

Once here, he became Futch's right-hand man and assisted as the renowned trainer worked with such prominent champions as Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Michael Spinks, Larry Holmes, Mike McCallum, Virgil Hill and Riddick Bowe.

"It was through the roof," Lewis recalled. "Things couldn't have been better.

"It was crazy, a different kind of life. Eddie was a fabulous guy who had a tremendous amount of knowledge and we were having so much fun."

Futch, who was as revered as anyone in the sport, died at the age of 90 on Oct. 10, 2001 and Lewis went on to train a few fighters on his own, as well as assisting trainer Thel Torrence with some others. They continue to train fighters, including heavyweight David Defiagbon, and worked the corner for former cruiserweight world champ Vassiliy Jirov as he beat Ernest Mateen last week in California.

"I'd like to be a little busier," Lewis said of his current duties. "But that's the way it is and I try to make do with what I've got."

Asked if he thought today's fighters were as rock solid as some of their predecessors, Lewis gave the question a few moments' thought.

"Well, it's just not the same," he said without a trace of indignation. "They're not as committed as we were.

"But you see what the trouble is: They don't have an Eddie Futch. They don't have the kind of guys you can trust and love as a grandfather.

"And I'm not that guy either."

That's a humble appraisal, to be sure, but maybe one that is off the mark, given as it was by a man with the type of old-style values that any fighter today could trust and love.

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