Lewis to Manny: Learn from loss

MANILA, Philippines - Former world heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis rebounded from a shock knockout loss to Hasim Rahman in 2001 to dispose of his tormentor in a rematch seven months later and in an encouraging note to Manny Pacquiao, recently said “gladiators need setbacks because when you come back from them, it shows how great you are.”

Lewis, 47, suffered a fate similar to Pacquiao who was flattened by Juan Manuel Marquez with a single counter right hand in the sixth round in Las Vegas last December. Lewis, defending his WBC/IBF/IBO heavyweight titles, didn’t take Rahman seriously and was knocked out by a single right hand in the fifth round at Carnival City, South Africa, in 2001. He didn’t train properly for the fight and even took in a movie job a week before to show his lack of respect for the challenger.

But in a rematch, Lewis was determined to regain lost pride. He was all business from training camp to fight night and in the fourth round, caught Rahman with a brutal left-right combination. Rahman went down for good as Lewis gained his revenge.

“Lewis believed too much in his own press and even spent time on a movie set a week before the fight in Johannesburg,” wrote David Hudson Jr. and Mike Fitzgerald Jr. in the book “Boxing’s Most Wanted.” “Lewis appeared to be slowly seizing control of the action but in the fifth round, Rahman landed a right hand and Lewis fell like a sack of potatoes and could not beat the count. To his credit, Lewis kayoed Rahman in a rematch with an equally devastating punch.”

Pacquiao could learn from Lewis’s experience. Like Lewis, he was knocked out in a fight he should’ve won and like Lewis, hopes to come back with a vengeful victory over Marquez to extend their riyalry into a quintology. No less than Lewis himself said Pacquiao can come back.

“A loss can make you look at yourself in a way that victory cannot,” said Lewis who in 2005, was tapped as an expert witness by lawyer Judd Burstein in Pacquiao’s suit against New Jersey promoter Murad Muhammad. “It gives you a feeling that inspires you to be better. Manny can come back from his loss to Marquez. Prior to that split second when he lost concentration, he was in control and was looking to press his advantage. But he was off balance and he wasn’t aware of where Marquez was. If you don’t know where your opponent is, they can punish you.”

Lewis recalled his own harrowing loss to Rahman. “I made that mistake against Rahman,” said Lewis in a guest column in the London trade weekly magazine Boxing News. “As soon as Marquez landed that punch on Pacquiao, it made me think back to my fight against Rahman. Nobody thinks it’s possible and then it happens. Wow! What a shocking moment. When I realized what had happened, I was so angry with myself. I knew that if I had trained properly, he would have had no chance, even if he was at his absolute best. I knew that straight away and that shaped my mind for revenge.”

Lewis wouldn’t be denied his reprisal. At the age of 36, he knocked out Rahman at 1:29 of the fourth round in Las Vegas. Lewis would fight only twice more, halting Mike Tyson in eight in 2002 and stopping Vitali Klitschko in six a year later. He was 38 when he fought his last against Klitschko. Pacquiao is 34 and if he battles Marquez in a fifth fight in September, the Mexican will be 40 by then.

Lewis said a positive attitude will put Pacquiao back on track. “It depends how Pacquiao reacts to the loss,” he continued. “Is he a broken man? Or is he a man who can admit he made a mistake in the ring and build on that? I said to myself almost immediately (after losing to Rahman), ‘I’ll get him next time, I will not make that mistake again.’”

Recovering from a knockout loss to reverse the outcome isn’t an impossible dream. World heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson was floored seven times in bowing to Ingemar Johansson on a third round knockout in New York in 1959 then stormed back to halt the Swede in a return bout a year later and scored another stoppage in the rubber match. Lewis exacted revenge on Rahman and Pacquiao could do the same to Marquez.