Why Lennox Lewis tops the ballot for the Boxing Hall of Fame

By Jeff Haney (contact)

Monday, Oct. 20, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The ballot for the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s class of 2009 contains 45 candidates from the sport’s modern era, defined as fighters whose last bout took place no earlier than 1943.

One of them is a shoo-in.

Lennox Lewis, one of the most dominant heavyweights of his era, figures to head the class of inductees in his first year of eligibility.

Boxers must wait five years after their final fight to appear on the ballot, and Lewis last fought in 2003, stopping Vitali Klitschko in a heavyweight world title fight in Los Angeles. Lewis won by sixth-round technical knockout when the fight was halted because of deep cuts on Klitschko’s face.

Klitschko returned to the ring this month for the first time in nearly four years, beating Sam Peter for the WBC heavyweight championship in Berlin.

After his victory, Klitschko said he would like to lure Lewis, 43, out of retirement for a big-money rematch. So far, it seems prudent to relegate that one to the off-the-wall-rumor department.

Assuming Lewis does stay retired, he will top my ballot for the hall of fame’s latest class of inductees.

Lewis, a native of England who moved to Canada at age 12, compiled a record of 41-2-1 with 32 knockouts in a professional career that began in 1989. He won the heavyweight world championship three times and reigned on various occasions as the unified or undisputed world champ.

Lewis avenged both of his losses, to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, with emphatic victories in rematches. Lewis stopped McCall by TKO in 1997 and knocked out Rahman in 2001, both times in Las Vegas.

His 12-round draw against Evander Holyfield in 1999 at Madison Square Garden, a fight clearly controlled by Lewis, is remembered as perhaps the worst judging decision in a major championship fight. Later that year, Lewis scored a unanimous-decision victory against Holyfield in Las Vegas for the undisputed world championship.

Lewis should be an overwhelmingly popular selection to enter the International Boxing Hall of Fame, which officially opened in Canastota, N.Y., in 1989 and inducted its first members a year later.

Hall of famers are classified in five divisions: modern; old-timers, whose last bout took place from 1893 to 1942; pioneers, whose last fight was in or before 1892; nonparticipants; and observers.

Members of the boxing media select modern inductees. Historians appointed by the International Boxing Hall of Fame select the inductees in the other categories.

This year’s selection process concludes at the end of the month. After an independent accounting firm appointed by the hall tabulates the ballots, a news conference will be conducted in early January to announce the results. The induction ceremony is scheduled for June 14 in Canastota.

Voters can choose up to 10 boxers from the modern era. My ballot included six and featured a decidedly international flavor.

In addition to Lewis, I put check marks next to the following names:

• Jung-Koo Chang: A South Korean great, Chang had a record of 38-4 with 17 knockouts when he retired for good in 1991. Three of his losses came in his final four fights, after he returned to the ring because of financial trouble following a yearlong layoff. Chang had avenged his other loss, a 15-round split decision to Hilario Zapata, by stopping Zapata in a rematch for the junior flyweight world title. He made 15 consecutive successful defenses of his championship, a figure that places him in the company of hall of famers from the lighter weight divisions such as Ricardo Lopez (22 defenses, strawweight), Miguel Canto (14, flyweight) and Khaosai Galaxy (19, junior bantamweight).

• Ceferino Garcia: Whether Garcia was actually the inventor of the bolo punch has been lost to the annals of history. But he did popularize the unorthodox and exciting punch, later used by the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard and Roy Jones Jr., in a career that lasted from 1923 to 1945. The only Filipino middleweight world champion, Garcia retired with a record of 102-28-12 (67 KOs). One of the draws came in a famed clash with Henry Armstrong in 1940 in Los Angeles, a fight in which Armstrong was trying to become the first four-division champ.

• Masao Ohba: Ohba (35-2-1, 15 KOs) was the reigning world flyweight champion, and undefeated in six world title bouts, when he was killed in a head-on collision on a Tokyo highway in 1973 at the age of 23. Three weeks before his death, he had scored a knockout in Round 12 of a scheduled 15-round world championship fight against former world champ Chartchai Chionoi in Tokyo.

• Dave Sands: An Australian Aborigine, Sands was rated among the sport’s best middleweights at the time of his death in a truck crash in his homeland in 1952 at age 26. He went 97-10-1 with 62 knockouts before his life was cut short.

• Myung-Woo Yuh: Yuh (38-1, 14 KOs) broke Chang’s junior flyweight record with 17 consecutive title defenses, making his name as one of the most accomplished 108-pounders in the history of the sport before retiring at the top of his game in 1993.

Close but no Bert Sugar-style cigar: Georgie Abrams, Joey Archer, Naseem Hamed.