Don King's telephone call was well-timed. It came shortly before Lennox Lewis beat the man but could not blast the granite chin and big heart of Croatia's Zeljko Mavrovic in Uncasville on Saturday night.
King called Lewis's promoter Panos Eliades with a "good luck" message and to begin probing a superfight against WBA and IBF champion Evander Holyfield early next year. It might just have been expensive talk, but nevertheless was enough encouragement for the Lewis camp to develop the inquiry and hopefully turn heavyweight boxing's hottest fight from fantasy into fact.
And after Lewis had failed to overpower Mavrovic, although taking a wide, unanimous verdict at the Mohegan Reservation, King may be even keener to pow wow to bring the two champions together in a multi-million unification.
With the Holyfield incentive revived it was hardly encouraging that Lewis had to travel the full 12 rounds for the first time in five-and-a-half years to win a plus-and-minus fight by margins of 119109, 117-112 and 117-111.
At times Lewis's boxing was sharp, full of uppercuts, straight rights and combinations. But Lewis, though two stones heavier, could not impose his physical advantages to remove Mavrovic early, and he began to tire before half-way.
Trainer Emanuel Steward was baffled that Lewis huffed and puffed so soon, although the tempo of the fight was pretty slow and deliberate. Lewis was obliged to pace himself once the 29-year-old Croatian made it clear that capitulation was a word he could never comprehend.
Lewis and Steward admit to being thrown by Mavrovic's change of tactics. They expected him to run. Instead he stayed put. It seems that the champion's performance may have all hinged on a simple matter of motivation. Holyfield found it hard to raise his game against the lightly-regarded Vaughn Bean the previous week, and maybe Mavrovic's name was not big enough to stir Lewis's emotions. Perhaps King sees the danger of Lewis or Holyfield losing because of lack of motivation against lesser opponents and thereby wrecking a big "natural" which cannot afford to wait too much longer to happen. At the other end of the weight scale, Belfast's Damaen Kelly won his American debut by unanimously outscoring Baltimore's Mike Thomas 79-73, 79-74 and 78-73 on the Lewis-Mavrovic undercard.
Flyweight Kelly's left eye was cut in the fifth and streamed blood for the rest of a splendid eight-rounder which, as the scores indicated, was dominated by the Irishman. He momentarily lost control against a good and fast moving opponent in that fifth round when Kelly questionably decided to trade punches. And he harshly had to take a standing count after slipping to the canvas and lost that round 810 on one card and 9-10 on the other two. Kelly won all the other rounds.
