‘Retire on top like I did’: Lennox Lewis gives advice to Oleksandr Usyk

Lennox Lewis explains why it’d would be smart of Oleksandr Usyk to walk away before he’s forced out of the sport.

Lennox Lewis believes Oleksandr Usyk shouldn’t hang around the sport for too much longer.

Former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis spoke to Sky Sports about his thoughts on the state of Oleksandr Usyk’s career and how much longer he believes Usyk should carry on before hanging up the boxing gloves for good.

“When a guy retires it’s really down to him,” Lewis said. “He’s got to feel that push that he wants to retire, but he can teach a lot of the young boxers a lot of different things: dedication, hard work, sacrifice, because he’s been through that. So I would say to him ‘retire at your own time but retire on top like I did.’

“(Going undisputed) is definitely the hardest thing to do because you basically want to be the best in boxing and take all the belts for yourself and be the #1 guy. And there’s always other boxers out there that don’t want you to achieve that, they’re standing by, they want to beat you, they want to be the first guy to beat you so that’s why you got to make sure you retire on top.”

Lewis was then asked how he thinks Usyk would’ve fared if he competed in his generation of heavyweights.

“I think he would’ve fared really good because he’s doing something Evander Holyfield did, in this era he’s basically beaten all the big guys and all the guys that were in front of him, so he’s done a great job.”

Category: General Sports