By Scoop Malinowski

One of the most important early fights in the career of Lennox Lewis was his 1992 WBC Eliminator vs. Razor Ruddock contested in London. Great Britain, the inventors of the sport of boxing, had not boasted of having produced a world heavyweight champion in a great many years. But Lennox Lewis, born in London, was the long-awaited hope. 21-0 at the age of 25, Lewis was under enormous pressure to satisfy high expectations on the night of October 31 against such a tough customer as Donovan Razor Ruddock. Harold Knight, who was the assistant trainer of Lewis throughout his entire career, recalls the night Lewis announced his heavyweight presence to the boxing world with a spectacular and devastating performance.

“The fight was held at Earls Court in London. Floyd Patterson was training Razor at the time. What I remember is that only a few people believed we were going to win, including people in our camp…Lennox obviously, myself, Courtney, Pepe Correa - who was the trainer at the time - and Lennox’s mum were the only people who believed we would win. The press conference was very hectic and historic being that this was Razor’s first fight after the Tyson fight, so it was assumed by the boxing experts he was going hurt and knock Lennox out. I recall that the winner would fight the winner of the Bowe-Holyfield winner for the Undisputed Championship. Bowe would win setting up a match with Lennox - but he gave up the WBC belt - which in turn we were awarded the green strap!! Only two Heavyweight Champs were awarded the title without fighting for it in the ring Lennox Lewis and Kenny Norton.

Me being the assistant trainer , one of my jobs was to inspect the dressing rooms in advance as well as the taping of Razor’s hands and when his boxing gloves were put on. I made sure that we had the bigger and better dressing room with heat and that our opponent Razor had the smaller dressing room with no heat and no massage table or cot to rest on prior to the fight. All trainers try to get the best and most psychological advantage as possible - London was our home field advantage. When it was time to wrap his hands I complained they were not wrapped in accordance with the British Boxing Control. They had to wrap over. And I also complained they did not glove him up properly. They had to glove him up all over again - another psych advantage. What people did not know is that Lennox and Razor sparred in the past in Canada when Lennox was still amateur and held his own and some. So Lennox knew he was going to beat Razor.

We were confident and in excellent shape and he was not going to be denied! As the world knows Lennox went on to knock Razor out in round two, so essentially that was our World Championship fight on a historic night on Halloween at Earls Court in London. A very memorable night that I will never forget!”