Boxing: Lewis ready to deny Tyson his final moment of glory

Mike Tyson's last public announcement before going into the ring with Lennox Lewis here at The Pyramid tonight was still another casually obscene mockery of what is left of the spirit of his sport now that he is just about done with it.

He spat it away as he does a routine curse but with the knowledge that he was capturing the appeal of a world heavyweight title fight rooted in the blood-lust of the Colosseum and likely to be the richest in the history of boxing. It remains hard to know quite for whom he reserves most contempt, the people paying for his freak show or himself.

"I think of it as a party, so to speak," said Tyson. "I want to get it on and crush his skull."

There will be certain restrictions on Tyson's party, however. Only four of his corner men will be allowed to walk with him to the ring, where security will be heavy against the prospect of the Doomsday anarchy which has reigned in the wake of some of Tyson's fights. His latest guru, the banned trainer Carlos "Panama" Lewis, who was imprisoned after turning the gloves of one of his fighters into the lethal weapons that literally destroyed an opponent's life, will have to sit well away from the ring.

We are at full circle now, one drawn in blood and pain betrayal and, it seems more than ever before, the disintegration of a man's sanity and his soul.

Back in the mid-1980s when he arrived in the ring with the force of a wrecking ball, Tyson expressed the desire to drive an opponent's nose-bone into his brain. Later, he issued a statement saying that he had merely been guilty of an unfortunate joke. But the joke, vicious and macabre, has grown down the years. The joke, and there can never have been a darker one in the whole world of sport, has become reality and tonight it will reach its ultimate expression as Tyson, a few weeks short of his 36th birthday and long after his most ferocious skills first began to erode, seeks to provide himself with the last, leering laugh.

It is plainly his belief that such a moment of triumph would wipe away the accumulated debris of a life and a career which has so relentlessly shed any sense of purpose beyond the survival of the moment – and the financially sustaining image of uncharted violence of the body and the mind. The rape and the rage are, he seems to be saying, discountable here. He can square the ledger in one brief burst of volcanic action.

Lewis's job is to smash down that ambition. At 6ft 5in – against Tyson's 5ft 11^1/₂in – he has the height and the power and the skill to achieve the task, and if moral superiority carried any leverage we could already assign his opponent to the last tormented pickings of his hard-won notoriety.

There are several reasons, though, why we cannot assume that Tyson is about to be sent lurching off down a side-road of boxing history and the most important concerns the last potent weapon lurking behind the mystique of the profligate warrior who may be just one defeat away from the hardest of times.

Tyson can still punch with the impact of a jackhammer. This means that in one instinctive moment he has the potential to unravel the career of a man who goes at least as far as the skirting of the ring tonight with the right to call himself the most dominant – and the most decent – heavyweight champion of his generation. But decency has no purchase here. Nor, possibly, the merit of hard work and a dedication which, but for two isolated lapses, has made Lewis a superb professional. The key tonight is being first with the big punch, the big statement of who truly, of the two youths who 20 years ago sparred savagely in a little gym above the fire station in the town of Catskill, New York, has the most nerve for the serious action.

Some, legitimately, have portrayed this as much a morality play as a prize fight but those who favour Lewis, for the soundest of technical reasons, know that there is about Tyson a capacity to unnerve unequalled since the days of the brooding Sonny Liston and a George Foreman yet to be unmasked by Muhammad Ali. Nowhere has such apprehension resided more pervasively over the last days – and nights – than in the mind of Lewis's trainer Emanuel Steward.

Steward has seen and worked more of the fight game than any of his contemporaries. He guided his great protégé Thomas Hearns into those unforgettable fights with Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler with a relish and a calm which now, he says, seem to belong to another life. "I've been waking up covered in sweat and shadow boxing these last few nights. I've never felt like this before, never felt so nervous, and it is nothing to do with my respect and belief in Lennox Lewis. He is the most gifted heavyweight I have ever known, and I know that he is really looking forward to this fight. He is perfectly focused, he is the greatest shape, so why do I worry when I wake up in the middle of the night?

"It is because I have never known such power come to a single fight. It is as though the ring has been filled with dynamite and I'm worried that someone is going to throw down a match."

The relief for Steward has been coming with the sunrise. Then he deals with the realities of the fight. He thinks it through, and he has a perfect scenario. It has Lewis irresistible as early as the second round, Tyson's first desperate rush repulsed, and now just a target for the long clean blows of the man bringing an end to the tumult and the demon spirit of an ogre dwindling before his eyes.

"When I analyse the fight," says Steward, "I see how difficult it is for Tyson to win. Tyson's style is like Joe Frazier's. It's a youthful style, lunging, bobbing instinctive and so dependent on speed. But Tyson no longer has youth. As we age we start to lose those attributes we once relied upon. Older fighters try to bring themselves back, they tried to reproduce what they had before but then they discover they no longer have it. When Tyson discovers this, when he is facing a heavyweight as outstanding as Lennox, well, he will be very discouraged. When I think about it I can see how this fight could so easily resemble Foreman-Frazier."

Foreman ravaged the much smaller Frazier with the range and the power of his punching. Lewis is confident that he can do the same to Tyson. "He has so few options. He is a small bully and he will find that I can be a big one."

Tyson, who has been cleared to use his anti-depressant medication but has had to submit to rigorous drug testing, dismisses the champion's advantages of height and reach. "This fight isn't about those things, it is about heart and character and I have that. I don't have to win it in the first three rounds. Sooner or later I'm going to knock him out and I hope he doesn't have a heart attack."

The threat is shrugged away by Lewis, who has noted that the talk of Tyson's fierce training camp regime has hardly been substantiated by a fighting weight of 16st 10^1/₂lb, which is 12lb heavier than he scaled for his last serious opponent, Andrew Golota, 20 months ago. "What can this little man do?" Lewis asks. "When he rushes me he will meet a long, hard jab, then my right hand, then, if he is still there, an uppercut or a hook. I think he's very scared. I think he knows what is going to happen."

According to Steward there is a perfect scenario. It is shaped by Lewis's jab, and will see quick and mounting pressure on a frustrated and increasingly desperate Tyson. "He will try to re-create what he had before and when he finds that this is not possible against Lennox Lewis he will start to think, and then it will be in the end. A fighter like Tyson doesn't think. He just does it, and the fact is that he cannot any more."

But can Lewis? He will be 37 in September, and it is a time when even the best prepared fighters can suddenly catch old age along with a well-delivered punch. However, the big man is entitled to more than a little faith. The two blots on his professional record of 39 wins, two losses and one draw were massively redeemed. He has never ducked a dangerous opponent, and when the challenge has been most difficult he has inevitably been at his best. His status as 2-1 on favourite is earned not least by the fact that he has been operating over the last 10 years at a level way beyond that of Tyson, whose only decent opponent in this time, Evander Holyfield, beat him twice, on the second occasion forcing him into the parish status of an ear-biter.

Lewis is a man of character, strength and talent and, if it had to come to this, if boxing had to reserve its richest rewards for his fight against an opponent who has systematically abused almost everything he has touched, boxing could find no better champion.

Boxing needs a Lewis victory beside the Mississippi tonight, and the firm belief in this quarter is that it will get it. The terminating power of the better man will prevail in or around the fourth round, and an old, battered game will enjoy the equivalent of a long and wonderfully cleansing shower.

How Tyson and Lewis have fared against the same opponents

Tyrell Biggs

Tyson stopped Biggs in the seventh round of the fourth defence of his world heavyweight title in Atlantic City in October 1987. Biggs met Lewis four years later and was beaten in three.

Tony Tucker

Later in 1987, an unbeaten Tucker became the first man to take Tyson to a points decision during his reign as champion. Six years later Tucker also stretched Lewis to points.

Andrew Golota

Golota was tipped by many to beat Lewis when they met in 1997 but he froze and Lewis knocked him out inside 30 seconds. Tyson met Golota in 2000 when Golota refused to start the fourth round. Tyson's victory was subsequently altered to a no contest after he tested positive for illegal substances.

Frank Bruno

Bruno hit Tyson with a decent punch in 1988, putting the champion on the back foot, but succumbed in the fifth. Eight years later they met again, and Tyson stopped Bruno in the third. In 1993. Bruno also gave Lewis trouble, before a right hander stopped him in seven.

Francois Botha

Botha came close to beating Tyson in the second of his comebacks in 1999, but midway through round five Botha was stopped by a single punch. Botha came to London in 2000 when Lewis stopped him in the second round.

Razor Ruddock

The Ruddock fight was arguably Lewis's best ever and he stopped the Canadian in round two. Tyson fought Ruddock twice ­ beating him in seven in 1991 and on points three months later.

Evander Holyfield

Holyfield was unfancied but stopped Tyson in the 11th in 1996. One year later came the infamous rematch when Tyson twice bit Holyfield's ear and was disqualified. In a world title unification fight in 1999, Lewis dominated but Holyfield secured a draw. The rematch went the distance, too, but Lewis won.