Lewis Edges Mercer In Tripleheader Card’s Only Dramatic Fight

Lennox Lewis wants to fight Mike Tyson, but Friday night at Madison Square Garden, he had all he could do to handle Ray Mercer.

At the end of 10 tough rounds, Lewis was declared a majority-decision winner to a chorus of boos from a crowd of 17,041.

The 35-year-old Mercer seemed to control the fight with punishing left jabs and had Lewis in trouble on a couple of occasions. But Lewis was called the winner 96-95 by judge Luis Rivera and 96-94 by judge George Colon. Melvina Lathan scored it 95-95.

The AP scored it 97-93 for Mercer; the New York Times scored it 95-95.

Lewis, 30, scored often with left jabs and with several sharp 1-2s and good uppercuts, but Mercer forced the action and his jab was much harder than Lewis’.

There were no knockdowns, but both fighters’ faces were badly swollen and both were bleeding from the mouth.

Also on the card, two-time former heavyweight champions Evander Holyfield and Tim Witherspoon scored lopsided victories.

Holyfield stopped former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champ Bobby Czyz after five rounds when Czyz had trouble seeing and quit.

In the opening bout, Witherspoon, a former WBC and WBA champion looking for another title shot at age 38, knocked down Jorge Luis Gonzalez twice and stopped him at 2:54 of the fifth round.