{"id":446815,"date":"2026-01-30T06:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/446815\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T06:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:46:14","slug":"johnny-lewis-calls-for-michael-zerafa-to-retire-following-nikita-tszyu-no-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/446815\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Lewis calls for Michael Zerafa to retire following Nikita Tszyu no-contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boxing icon Johnny Lewis believes it’s time for Michael Zerafa<\/a> to retire from the sport and backed Nikita Tszyu’s<\/a> decision to walk away from a rematch with the Melburnian.<\/p>\n

Tszyu spoke to the media a week ago, stating that Zerafa<\/a> should hang up the gloves while shutting down any chance of the two sharing the ring again.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Wide World of Sports, Lewis agreed on both counts.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW LIVE: 2026 Australian Open, day 13<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Twist in US star’s wild stripped Olympic medal saga<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘He smoked me’: Wallabies gun’s painful memory of Crichton bashing<\/a><\/p>\n

“There’s been times when I thought Michael had it all, but I think it’d be the best decision for him (to retire),” Lewis said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a good way to go out, but maybe it’s time for him to go because this sort of thing has happened before.<\/p>\n

“It’d be nice if he could get a win and get out of it. But at the same time the fighter, unfortunately, is always the last to know that it’s over. <\/p>\n

“Looking at his age now and his experience, Michael’s got to realise that there’s a lot of better things out there than boxing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Johnny Lewis in 2022. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“He’s got to be guided by the right people and they’re working with him seven days a week or whatever, but I just see it as fleeting.<\/p>\n

“I hope he doesn’t rush into a decision and I hope the one he makes is the right one. He’s a good person.”<\/p>\n

The much-hyped clash<\/a> ended in a no contest when Zerafa suffered a cut eye in an accidental head clash, leaving fans furious.<\/p>\n

Zerafa was heard by television microphones<\/a> complaining he couldn’t see. Speaking after the fight Zerafa claimed he had not said he couldn’t see, rather had complained that his eyesight was “blurry”.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Michael Zerafa pleads that he can’t see. \u00a0Main Event<\/p>\n

“All I can say is that when he said something and then he denied saying it, and then it was put in front of him, it made him look a little bit stupid,” Lewis continued.<\/p>\n

“But we’ve got to look after these fighters and they’re very brave to get in there.<\/p>\n

“And if that’s not there anymore, that’s when you take a step forward and get out of the place.<\/p>\n

“If you’re not up for it and you got doubts, get out. That’s how I look at it.<\/p>\n

“There’s something up with the thinking that’s telling him to do that, he mentally seems like he’s unsure a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Nikita<\/p>\n

Nikita Tszyu (left) and Zerafa chat after the no-contest.\u00a0No Limit Boxing<\/p>\n

“You’re always going to have knockers and things like that. But, be honest about it.”<\/p>\n

While there’s a school of thought that a rematch would be worth much more than the original fight<\/a>, Lewis does not think it should take place.<\/p>\n

“I don’t see it that way but I’m not gonna be the one that’s gonna put the money up for it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You’d think that the Rose brothers wouldn’t be too keen because I don’t think there’d be bums on seats.<\/p>\n

“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool them all of the time. And I don’t think that it would draw a deep breath.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know. He’s got a manager that’s pretty astute and capable, but personally, I wouldn’t be too happy to go and see it. It’s dead and dusted from my point of view.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

George Rose refused to rule out a rematch in the ring.\u00a0Main Event<\/p>\n

“I don’t think Nikita would be all that up for it, but stranger things have happened – money talks.”<\/p>\n

As for Nikita Tszyu, Lewis is confident he can match up with ranked fighters on the international scene, despite his lack of defence.<\/p>\n

“Even when he was in control of the last fight with Michael, he still got hit a little bit,” Lewis pointed out.<\/p>\n

“I think Nikita can beat good fighters, there’s no doubt. He has given them a little bit, but that’s not gonna be too hard to turn around.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always thought that he was the one that could go the highest.<\/p>\n

“He’s very, very tough, inside and out, I think he’s up there and given the right bloke at the right time, Nikita will do himself proud and certainly Australian boxing.<\/p>\n

“With the longer rounds, you know, 12 rounds, I can never see Nikita wanting out.<\/p>\n

“I just think that he’s a real pro boxer. It was just a bit of a shame that we didn’t get to see the end there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing icon Johnny Lewis believes it’s time for Michael Zerafa to retire from the sport and backed Nikita…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-446815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}