My deepest sympathies go out to the Frazier family during this time of loss and grief and I would like them to know that they are in my prayers.  He will be missed but never forgotten.  May he rest in peace.

WATERLOO — Landon Lewis took the ceremonial tam from his dad Lennox and plunked it on his head.

The purple hat looked like a large heliotrope umbrella on a seven-year-old’s noggin. On dad? The same tam looked like a small, wide-brimmed skull cap on the 46-year-old Kitchener-grown behemoth of boxing.

Everyone laughed in the corridor of the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex as Pomp and Circumstance began to play on Friday afternoon.

“This is the reason I’m bringing him to this kind of event,” said Lennox Lewis, before the last great heavyweight boxing champ the world may ever know received an honorary doctor of laws degree at the fall convocation of Wilfrid Laurier University.

“So he can actually see his father accepting his honorary degree and see him in a different light than in the ring.”

Lewis is seven-years retired from the world of boxing now.

He escaped with his dignity and his priorities after winning all that there was to win, including an Olympic gold medal for Canada in 1988.

Now, the British-born Lewis is rich beyond the dreams that he held competing in football, basketball, track and wrestling at Cameron Heights high school.

It’s not that he’s worth an estimated $150-million or that he lives in Miami and Jamaica.

His true wealth rests in his family.

Remember when once-fearsome foe Mike Tyson threatened to eat the champ’s children before being demolished in the ring by Lewis?

Tyson better have an appetite.

Lewis, a kid who grew up without a dad, expects to be a father of four come Christmas.

His wife Violet, a former Jamaican beauty queen, is expecting. Their daughters, Ling and Leya, are five and two respectively.

“I love the fact I have time for my kids,” said Lewis, who was mentored as a teen by his Kitchener trainer, the late Arnie Boehm. “They have such young minds. And they depend on their father and mother for information. I’m glad to be there for them.”

Landon held hands with his grandma Violet Blake, who had purple streaks in her hair, as the procession worked its way into the main arena, where 1,150 Laurier students were up for graduation on Friday.

Laurier’s new chancellor Michael Lee-Chin, a wealthy philanthropist like Lewis, gave a purple-robed Lewis his doctorate. Lewis later introduced his mom, son and niece to the crowd. Lewis, who used to play basketball with the Laurier hoopsters as a teen, wants his kids to graduate from university one day.

“They’re excelling already,” he said. “My son is very intuitive, inquisitive. At his age, he’s learning to play chess. Me and him play chess as many times as possible.”

Boxing was the sweet science to Lewis. He was a thinking-man’s heavyweight who could outsmart opponents as well as knock them out.

His ascension to becoming the last in a long line of boxing monarchs has been one long chess game. Lots of thinking between moves. Lots of strategy between bouts.

“Chess is like life in one sense,” he said. “You make a move in life, you have to make sure it’s the right move. You have to make sure you are protected and it has to be a positive move.”

Do something positive and give back, Lewis told the new graduates.

His boy Landon listened intently too.

“Education and knowledge are the tools,” Lewis said.

This was a much different ring where fists could not talk. Lewis looked comfortable in it.

His mom still had a front-row seat.

“I’m glad she’s had the opportunity to come here,” he said.

“And see her son in such a great light.”

WILFRID Laurier University will grant Lennox an honorary doctor of laws degree at the university’s fall convocation October 28. The university will also hold an installation ceremony at the convocation for incoming Chancellor Michael Lee-Chin, at which outgoing Chancellor John Pollock will ceremonially hand the chancellor’s robes to his successor.

Lee-Chin will be installed as chancellor and deliver an address to convocation at the morning ceremony, which begins at 10 am Lennox will receive his degree and address convocation at the afternoon ceremony, which begins at 2:30 pm. Both the morning and afternoon ceremonies will be held at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex.
Olympic gold medallist and three-time boxing heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis
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Lennox Lewis is an Olympic gold medallist and three-time boxing heavyweight champion of the world. George Foreman, also a former world heavyweight champion, called Lewis the “greatest heavyweight boxer of all time”. Lewis, who retired from the sport in 2004, is also a noted philanthropist. His Lennox Lewis Foundation raises money for disadvantaged children in Jamaica, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and he has supported social causes such as public advocacy against domestic violence. A dual Canadian-British citizen, he is a member of the Order of Canada and a Commander in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

The battle between the two highest world-rated heavyweight contenders will be televised live in the U.S. exclusively on EPIX, the multiplatform premium entertainment service. EpixHD.com will stream the fight live as part of a free two-week trial offer. The live broadcast and the live stream on EPIX and EpixHD.com, respectively, will begin with the main event at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT.

Following the Povetkin-Chagaev WBA heavyweight championship, the broadcast and live stream will continue with undefeated World Boxing Organization (WBO) and WBA Intercontinental heavyweight champion ROBERT HELENIUS defending his regional titles against former WBO heavyweight champion SIARHEI LIAKHOVICH.

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By Phil Barnett, PA

IT IS more than eight years ago now but Lennox Lewis can still remember the feeling of being caught in a clinch with a Klitschko.

Britain’s former world heavyweight champion fought his final fight against Vitali Klitschko in Los Angeles in June 2003. Shaken in the early rounds, Lewis rallied, cut Klitschko then rocked him. Klitschko began to grab Lewis to try to buy time.

“I hurt him and he collapsed on to me,” said Lewis. “It was like he was on me and I was saying ‘Oh man, now I have to push away 250lb and then throw a power punch’. It is just draining.”

Tomorrow it will be David Haye’s turn to feel the weight of a Klitschko when he faces Vitali’s younger brother, Wladimir, in their world heavyweight title unification clash at the Imtech Arena, here in Hamburg.

And Lewis, who will be at the fight as an analyst for Sky Box Office, feels the key to the fight will be whether Haye can avoid having his strength sapped by Klitschko’s holding tactics.

Haye, 30, is an explosive puncher but he is also a blown-up cruiserweight who could be vulnerable to the jab-and-grab style favoured by his bigger opponent.

“Both men are boxers who like to wait for their opportunity,” said Lewis. “David’s going to be moving, trying to figure out how to get in there. When he does get in there, he has to throw punches in bunches and then get out of the way.

“He can’t allow Wladimir to lean on him. That is one of the big mistakes a lot of people have made against him. They allowed Wladimir to slap their hands down and put his weight on them.

“Wladimir usually roughs his opponents up. His trainer Manny Steward will say ‘Rough him up, put your weight on him, push him back’.

“But David is pretty wise. He knows he cannot afford anybody else’s weight on him. He knows that would drain him.

“I remember that from when I fought his brother, so I know this is a big factor in this fight. He can’t allow Wladimir to hold him or put his weight on him.”

Lewis said he still feels in great shape and occasionally has to fight the temptation to return to the ring. He is not an admirer of Wladimir, 35, and believes Vitali, the WBC champion and holder of the linear title, is by far the more dangerous of the two brothers.

And despite the criticism Haye has had for refusing to shake Wladimir’s hand and vowing to decapitate him, Lewis feels Haye’s antics might already have taken their toll.

“It is funny because Wladimir is stoical,” Lewis said. “There is a stiffness about him. He says that David is not going to bother him and that ‘when I get in the ring with you, I am going to show you who’s boss’.

“But David is playing with him. He is saying things to him that would bother me. He is saying things in interviews that would make me jump across the chair at him. Wladimir seems like he’s handling it but he’s burning up inside.

“David could be psyching himself up because you can’t speak it and then not go in there and do it. He could be getting into Wladimir’s head, getting him so wound up that he is stiff in there or expels all his energy in the first few rounds.

“Haye’s brought excitement back to the division. Nobody has talked to Wladimir like that for a long time. Certain things he says is catchy stuff for the rest of the world. He is the Muhammad Ali of his era.”

Lewis pointed out that Wladimir had lost to fighters like Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster and that the memory of being stopped by them would still be “a chink in his armour”.

“Wladimir doesn’t have an iron chin. He has been knocked out by mediocre boxers,” added Lewis.

“So if David can get his right hand in there, shockingly and with power and speed, well, it doesn’t really then take that much of a punch to knock a person out. And David has the ability to deliver that punch.

“We know that if Wladimir gets hit on the chin, he will tumble.

“If you look at it on paper Wladimir is supposed to win, but my heart goes with David.”

David Haye versus Wladimir Klitschko has been a while in the making, but the clash of styles and character makes it worth the wait for Saturday night’s heavyweight showdown in Hamburg.

Klitschko’s big advantage is his size – his height and reach as a natural heavyweight. I would add Emanuel Steward, his trainer, my old trainer, as another big plus.
Steward will be encouraging Klitschko to use all his physical advantages, and always has wise counsel. Haye’s trainer Adam Booth is impressive up to a point, having taken his man from a diamond in the rough to a star, but Steward is the trainer of champions. Only Freddie Roach matches him at present in world boxing .
Klitschko should be the one winning the fight. But it is not as simple as that.

Haye is a good boxer, he moves well, he looks the part and has unbelievable speed. If he puts all of that together, he should be very successful in the fight. He boxed the way he was supposed to against the 7 ft Nikolai Valuev. Haye has a couple of elements of Muhammad Ali about him. Some people have different ways of psyching themselves up. My opponents used to psyche me up. You want to eat my children? OK, let’s go, that’s enough to get motivated.

Haye talks it: “I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that”. All he is really talking about is the things he wants to do against Klitschko. He is not saying it for no reason. He believes in himself. As did Ali.
Here’s a key point for Haye. I noticed when I boxed Vitali Klitschko, one year after I had taken on Mike Tyson, was that I was up against a guy who was 6ft 8in tall and almost 18st. When I hit him and hurt him, he fell on me. I had to push him off, almost lift him off, and then hit him. It was hard work.
What I am saying is that Haye should avoid a clinch with Klitschko, because Steward will have told him to put his weight on Haye and he will do it at every opportunity if he gets the chance
Haye has to use his fast feet to get himself into attacking positions, and then get away. If he gets an opening, he has to jump on Klitschko. But he should box him, and bring him in to the later rounds. If he avoids being leaned on, he could do that.

Klitschko is not known as being a driving force, or for pushing the fight. He is a counter puncher to a certain degree, even though he works behind the jab. Haye is also a counter puncher, and so somebody will need to take a position quickly in the fight. I see Klitschko as being more likely to do that.
Having worked with Emanuel, I see him instructing Wladimir to command the ring. He’ll tell him to “go strong”, that he is the champion and that he should impose himself. He has a younger, smaller man in front of him, and he cannot afford to look bad, so he has to go out there and show ring generalship.
And that could work in Haye’s favour. I am a big fan of “you can’t hit what you can’t catch”. If Klitschko goes out there and looks to hit Haye but is unable to do it because of Haye’s movement, that will play into the smaller man’s hands.

If Klitschko throws that jab out without making much impact, it could be a difficult night for him. But if he can control the fight with his jab, it should be an easy time for him.
Klitschko should have been getting some of these guys turning up for paydays out of there more quickly than he has been – knock ’em out! Heavyweight boxing should be a knockout, where one man imposes his will on the other and fans can feel good about the performance. But Klitschko doesn’t fight that way – he batters his opponents slowly. That means that Haye will have some time in the fight to unload.

Should Haye continue his career if he wins? Let him fight Wlad first and see how he feels. If Haye feels he wants to walk away, he should not force it. But you know what – I’m sure if he beats one brother, the other, Vitali, will come looking for him.

Lennox Lewis was speaking with Gareth A Davies

The bout will take place in Imtech Arena in Hamburg Germany and will also be broadcast live on HBO at 4:45 EST for American audiences. Klitschko (55-3, 45 KO’s) is the current IBO and WBO Heavyweight Champion and Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) is the WBA Heavyweight Championship belt. Tis bout will unify three quarters of the heavyweight belts. Vital Klitschko is the current holder of the WBC belt.

Lennox Lewis tells David Haye his only chance is to capitalise on speed against Wladimir Klitschko
Retirement cannot dull a great prizefighter’s love of a little flattery. Lennox Lewis takes a lengthy pause when he hears the assessment that David Haye, seeking on Saturday night to assume his mantle as Britain’s latest unified heavyweight champion, is barely fit to lace his gloves.

That’s how you do it: Lennox Lewis, who in his final fight left Vitali Klitschko bloodied and bowed, has identified a lack of speed as the younger brother’s primary weakness.

“Everybody has their own routes,” he declares, not exactly demurring from the idea. “You understand? Everybody makes their own steps.”
The shadow of Lewis hovers ominously over Hamburg’s Imtech Arena as Haye confronts his moment of reckoning against Wladimir Klitschko: a bout that presents a passport, potentially, to the heavyweight pantheon, not to mention a decisive rebuke to all those detractors who insist he is just a puffed-up cruiserweight.

For Lewis, the man whose pre-eminence in British boxing Haye has worked so ferociously to inherit, was a totemic heavyweight figure. Vanquishing Mike Tyson, Shannon Briggs and Evander Holyfield (twice), the Anglo-Canadian built a record to eclipse that of the London pretender, who chalked up his most recent victory against — whisper it quietly — Audley Harrison.

Addressing the parlous state of the division he left behind seven years ago, Lewis argues: “I think it’s a little bit weaker, because there’s not as much competition right now. It shrank down after the Muhammad Ali era. Then came the Larry Holmes era, then the Tyson-Holyfield-Riddick Bowe era, and things became even smaller. After that it has really just been the Klitschkos by themselves: Eastern European bloc fighters.

“I’m a true heavyweight, and I had been boxing in the class for a while, even in the Olympics. I had fought at two Games at that level, in Los Angeles and Seoul. David represents the position that used to belong to Holyfield — who was a cruiserweight, realised there was more money to step up, and had the talent to go and do it.”

More money, perhaps, but not quite the expected prestige. Still, the paucity of opponents has hardly discouraged Haye in his quest to be the undisputed champion in his adopted class. Lewis managed it, although his anointed heir looks increasingly unlikely to enjoy such distinction. To do so he needs to fight Wladimir’s elder brother, Vitali, and yet the Ukrainian is already scheduled to defend the WBC title against Poland’s Tomasz Adamek on Sept 10 — a mere five weeks before the Oct 13 retirement date to which Haye is steadfastly sticking.

Among Lewis’ signature achievements was the demolition he conducted on Vitali in Dec 2003, leaving his opponent requiring 60 stitches. “He was cut on three sides of his face,” the 45 year-old recalls. Memories of that night provide an instructive insight into the awkwardness for which the Klitschkos are famed.

“I wasn’t really at my best, but at my worst I still beat him,” says Lewis, who has plainly lost none of his self-aggrandising gifts outside the ring. “My situation was that I had taken a year off, and then all of a sudden I’m put in against a guy who measures 6ft 8in and weights 250lb. After I hit him, he falls on me, and I have to deal with pushing him off. At the same time, I have to hurt him. That’s the only thing I didn’t really prepare for. David has to make sure that Wladimir doesn’t hurt him.”

Speaking from New York, Lewis is preparing to travel to Germany this week in his fresh incarnation as television pundit. He left one job, at American network HBO, amid rumoured disquiet last summer over his bizarre on-air statements — sample: “There are no nightclubs in Las Vegas.” He could not be more explicit, though, in his analysis of Haye’s prospects under Hamburg’s stadium lights.
“I see that he’s fighting an uphill battle all the way. Very few boxers are able to do that. He’s in a weight class where he is obviously oversized. The Klitschkos weigh more than him, they’re bigger than him, they have longer reach. But they’re not quicker than him, so he has to capitalise on his quickness. If he was to be successful, it would be history-making.”

Warming to his theme, Lewis isolates Haye’s priorities against the fearsome Wladimir, two inches taller at 6ft 5in and self-styled as ‘Dr Steelhammer’.
“Definitely movement, and to throw punches in bunches,” he counsels. “We have seen him up against a 7ft tall guy before, in Nikolai Valuev, and he was definitely quicker than him. So he has to capitalise on that and put it all together with some combinations.”

Never shy of offering expertise, Lewis once went by the moniker of ‘pugilist specialist’ and has retained every last drop of his passion for boxing.
“Every time I step into the gym, I have to teach somebody something,” he admits. “I have bags full of knowledge that always come out.” Checking himself and sounding, for a second, suspiciously like Frank Bruno, he adds: “I haven’t been in the ring with anybody. Know what I mean?”

Life has been positively serene for Lewis since his final professional fight against the older Klitschko. He has relocated to Miami with his wife, a former Miss Jamaica runner-up, and a personal net worth of £95 million hints at scant need for him to pursue many adventurous sidelines. “I’m doing whatever comes up,” he says, with a lazy drawl suggestive of his sun-kissed lifestyle.

One constant, at least, is his foundation, designed to assist America’s underprivileged children in spheres far outside boxing. “Do anything you wish to do, just realise the sacrifices involved,” he pronounces, in a statement of his life philosophy. “My mother used to say: ‘You can’t get anywhere without sweat.’ So if I’m in the ring or working out, I need to sweat. That has always played in the back of my head.”
It is a lesson that he tries equally to impart to his three young children.

“My son is very dedicated in anything he does. I look at him and I see me. I was very focused, whether in getting my candy or hitting a ball into a net.” Could he ever envisage young Landon following the paternal path inside the ropes? “He would be a great boxer” comes Lewis’ reply, the pride rich in his voice. “And he would have the best coach possible: me.”

“Working with Epix has been a great experience and it’s very exciting to be part of something so groundbreaking,” says Lennox. “I’m also looking forward to working with Dan Rafael and Bruce Beck”, he added. Rafael, who will be calling his first fight, recently signed on with EPIX says, ““I look forward to working on Epix with our expert commentator and great heavyweight champ, Lennox Lewis and blow by blow man Bruce Beck,” via his twitter account last week.

Epix HD is a premium entertainment website that will stream the bout live from the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany. EPIX will also present a closed caption simulcast of the fight on a jumbotron in the heart of Times Square in New York City.

Sturm (35-2-1, 15 KOs), of Leverkusen, Germany, is a three-time middleweight champion. His current reign as WBA champion, now in its fourth year, began on April 28, 2007 with a 12-round decision victory over defending champion Javier Castillejo, avenging a previous world title loss. Sturm has successfully defended the title nine times since with the most recent title defense taking place in February, a seventh-round TKO of Ronald Hearns, son of the Hall of Famer Tommy Hearns.

Macklin (28-2, 19 KOs), hails from Birmingham, England, though the proud Irishman travels on an Irish passport. He enters this world championship battle riding a four-year, 11-bout winning streak, including a third-round TKO victory of Wayne Elcock for the British middleweight title in 2009 and European middleweight championship victories over Amin Asikainen (TKO 1) in 2009 and Shalva Jomardashv (TKO 6) and Ruben Varon (W 12) in 2010. He is currently world-rated No. 2 by the WBA and No. 4 by the World Boxing Organization.

EPIX, a joint venture between Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), its Paramount Pictures unit, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), is a next-generation premium entertainment channel, video-on-demand and online service launched on October 30, 2009. With access to more than 15,000 motion pictures spanning the vast libraries of its partners and other studios, EPIX provides a powerful entertainment experience with more feature films on demand and online and more HD movies than any other service. It is the only premium service providing its entire monthly line-up of new Hollywood titles, classic feature films, original series, music and comedy specials through the linear channel, video-on-demand and online at EpixHD.com, the leading online destination for movies.