Lewis vs Tyson, 2002: The Brawl, the Banned Licence and the Jab That Ended It in Memphis

On the night of 8 June 2002, inside the pyramid-shaped arena in Memphis, Tennessee, Lennox Lewis finally met Mike Tyson and took him apart with a long left jab and a heavy right hand. The fight had been six years in the making, had been thrown out of Nevada after a press conference turned into a brawl, and ended in the eighth round with Tyson on the canvas, bleeding from both eyes.

A Fight Six Years Overdue

The idea of Lewis against Tyson was older than the bout itself. In 1996 Tyson gave up the WBC belt rather than face Lewis, choosing to fight Bruce Seldon instead, and the two men spent the following years on separate paths. By early 2002 Lewis held the WBC, IBF and Ring heavyweight titles and carried a record of 39 wins, two losses and a draw, with 30 knockouts. Tyson had 49 wins and three losses, 43 of the wins inside the distance, along with two no-contests.

The match was signed for 6 April 2002 in Las Vegas. Before a single ticket could be sold in Nevada, the promotion fell apart in front of the cameras.

Chaos at the Hudson Theatre

On 22 January 2002 the two camps gathered at the Hudson Theatre in New York for what was supposed to be a routine announcement. ESPN's account describes Tyson coming onto the stage dressed entirely in black, a leather hat on his head, and fixing his eyes on the spot where Lewis would appear. When Lewis walked out, Tyson moved straight toward him. A Lewis bodyguard shoved him back; Tyson threw a left hook and the bodyguard went down, though reporters could not tell whether the punch had landed.

Lewis answered with an overhand right that appeared to glance off the top of Tyson's head and opened a cut at his hairline. Within seconds the champion and the challenger were rolling on the floor of the stage while handlers, security men and entourage members piled in around them. WBC president José Sulaimán struck his head on a table during the melee and was briefly hospitalised with a concussion.

The most notorious detail emerged afterwards. A source in the Lewis camp said Tyson had bitten the champion on the leg, and Lewis later told Nevada regulators, as reported by ESPN, that Tyson "bit through my trousers and took a significant piece of flesh out of my thigh." Tyson himself would not say whether he had bitten Lewis, and argued that he had only intended a staged face-off for the cameras. The Ring magazine later named the brawl its Event of the Year for 2002.

Nevada Says No

Tyson still needed a licence to box in Las Vegas. On 29 January 2002 the Nevada State Athletic Commission held a hearing that lasted about three hours and questioned him about the New York scuffle and a string of earlier episodes, including an assault arrest in Maryland, a positive marijuana test after his fight with Andrew Golota and his use of antidepressant medication. The commissioners voted 4-1 to deny the licence.

Commissioner Amy Ayoub summed up the majority view in remarks quoted by ESPN: "We will not tolerate this kind of behavior from Mr. Tyson, not in boxing and not in Nevada." The only vote in Tyson's favour came from chairman Luther Mack, who said he would have considered a conditional licence. At the hearing Tyson told the panel, "I'm no Mother Teresa. I'm not Charles Manson either."

Memphis Takes the Fight Nobody Wanted

The April date in Las Vegas was dead, but Nevada's ruling did not bind other jurisdictions. Several states found the fight objectionable, while Washington, D.C., and Detroit were among the cities reported to be willing hosts. Memphis won the contest. City officials gave their approval in late March, and the bout was set for 8 June at The Pyramid, a 20,000-seat arena downtown. Sources differ slightly on the price: an Associated Press report put the site fee at $12.5 million, while the Wikipedia summary of the fight gives $12 million. Each fighter was guaranteed $17.5 million.

Tyson's camp saw an upside in the turmoil. "We've had a seven-week commercial basically since the press conference in New York," his representative Finkel told the AP.

The Jab That Decided Everything

A crowd of 15,327 filled The Pyramid on fight night. Lewis came in at 249¼ pounds, Tyson at 234. Referee Eddie Cotton was in charge, and the three judges came from South Africa, Thailand and Belgium.

Tyson's best moments came early. In the first round he landed a left hook to the jaw and pressed forward, and Lewis spent much of the session tying him up. Across ringside, the round went to Tyson, and it would be the only one he won on any card. From the second round onward Lewis settled behind his jab, using his reach to keep Tyson at the end of his punches and driving uppercuts into him whenever he closed the distance.

By the third Tyson was cut over the right eye. In the fourth, with seconds left, Lewis landed a burst of punches and Tyson went down, though the knockdown was waved off as a slip. Lewis also lost a point in that round; ESPN's report says the deduction was for holding, while other summaries describe it as pushing. Cotton warned him again about holding in the fifth.

The middle rounds were one-way traffic. Tyson's output dropped as his energy drained, and by the sixth he was bleeding over both eyes. In the seventh Lewis landed a heavy right and, according to the round-by-round summary on Wikipedia, outlanded Tyson 31 to 4 in those three minutes.

The End in the Eighth

Lewis finished it in the eighth round, dropping Tyson twice. Tyson got up from the first knockdown, but with 47 seconds remaining Lewis put him down again. Tyson tried to beat the count, but Cotton reached ten before he could rise. The official time was 2:25 of round eight. Accounts differ on the final image: ESPN says Tyson had reached one knee, while Wikipedia describes him as still on his back.

The punch statistics reported by ESPN show how lopsided the night had been. Lewis threw 328 punches and landed 193; Tyson threw 211 and landed 49. All three judges had given Tyson only the first round.

Respect After the Storm

The bitterness of January was gone by the end of the night. "There's no way I could ever beat him. He's just too big and too strong," Tyson said, as quoted by ESPN. Lewis explained his plan more simply: "Nobody gets away from my jab." His trainer Emanuel Steward said Tyson was not ready for that kind of fight.

The event broke records outside the ring as well. It drew 1.95 million pay-per-view buys in the United States and grossed $106.9 million, the highest figure for a pay-per-view event up to that time. The Ring named the finish its Knockout of the Year.

It was Lewis's last fight as a unified champion. A month later he gave up the IBF belt rather than face mandatory challenger Chris Byrd. A planned defence against Kirk Johnson fell through when Johnson was injured in training, so Lewis met Vitali Klitschko in 2003 instead, and he retired in 2004 still holding the WBC title.

Sources

• Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• Tyson media circus takes center stage, ESPN, 22 January 2002
• Nevada commission denies Tyson a boxing license, ESPN, 29–30 January 2002
• Memphis okays June 8 fight for Tyson-Lewis, Associated Press via Ironton Tribune, March 2002
• Lewis vs. Tyson fight report, ESPN, 8 June 2002