{"id":687631,"date":"2026-07-12T12:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/687631\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:42:07","slug":"heavyweight-champion-who-fought-lewis-and-holyfield-prepares-for-comeback-at-53-im-beating-everyone-in-the-gym","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/687631\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight champion who fought Lewis and Holyfield prepares for comeback at 53: “I’m beating everyone in the gym”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lennox Lewis<\/a> and Evander Holyfield<\/a> are regarded as two of the best heavyweights in recent history, and now a former world heavyweight champion who fought them both is planning a shock return to the sport at the age of 53.<\/p>\n

Lewis and Holyfield ruled the heavyweight division at various stages throughout the 1990s, which led to the duo famously colliding on two occasions in 1999.<\/a><\/p>\n

The first bout ended in a controversial split decision draw, before Lewis left no doubt in the second meeting as he won by unanimous decision to become undisputed heavyweight champion.<\/a><\/p>\n

Just under 18 months later, Lewis suffered an upset defeat, as he was knocked out inside five rounds by Hasim Rahman, and it is Rahman who is now planning on returning to the sport at the age of 53, as he looks to compete for the first time since June 2014.<\/p>\n

After his victory over Lewis, Rahman lost by fourth round knockout in their immediate rematch, before he then headed straight into a bout with Holyfield, suffering a technical decision loss after eight rounds due to an eye injury after an accidental head clash.<\/p>\n

Further defeats followed, with his record currently standing at 50 wins from 62 fights, but he has told Sean Zittel<\/a> about his current success in the gym.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like in every aspect of my life, I feel like a 25-year-old. I go in the gym and I\u2019ll work everybody in the gym, every single person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahman is scheduled to compete at the ESL Ballpark in Rochester, New York on Tuesday 18 August, with an opponent yet to be announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield are regarded as two of the best heavyweights in recent history, and now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-687631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}