Ready to rumble: The day Lennox Lewis decided to gamble it all against Vitali Klitschko in Los Angeles

In the same arena that Tyson Fury will this weekend challenge for the WBC heavyweight world championship, Lewis risked everything in his final night under the lights, writes Luke Brown

Lewis and Klitschko battle it out (Getty)

British boxing has not always been in such rude health as it is today. Some 103 years passed after the skinny legged Robert Prometheus Fitzsimmons lost the heavyweight world title to James J. Jeffries in 1899, before another Brit, Lennox Lewis, reclaimed a variation of the prize in far more unusual fashion.

In 1992 Riddick Bowe was the reigning champion but decided to toss his WBC belt into a bin after failing to negotiate terms with Lewis, who had been made mandatory challenger after knocking out Donovan Ruddock. “The WBC is wrong, and I will not be intimidated by them,” Bowe spat at a hastily assembled London press conference. “For as long as I am champion, I will not recognise or defend this dishonest belt.”

Since Lewis’s default elevation, there have been a further seven British world heavyweight champions: Michael Bentt, Herbie Hide, Frank Bruno, Henry Akinwande, David Haye, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. And yet Lewis — who held the world title three times, was lineal champion twice, and is the last heavyweight to hold the true undisputed title — remains the most storied. For now, at least.