Los Angeles, June 22: Britain's Lennox Lewis has escaped with his world boxing council heavyweight crown here when his fight with Vitali Klitschko was stopped after six rounds because of a severe cut over the challenger's left eye.
Referee Lou Moret stopped the fight on the advice of ringside doctor Paul Wallace with Klitschko leading 58-56 on all three judges' cards. Klitschko, bleeding from an ugly cut that had worsened since the third round, protested angrily as the crowd at Staples Center jeered the decision. "Right now I feel like I am the people's champion", Klitschko said. "I did not want them to stop the fight under any circumstances. My strategy was to take it into the seventh or eighth round. It wasn't easy, but I felt like I was winning. I know I was hurting him with my punches". Indeed, the WBC's top-ranked challenger, who took the fight on 12 days' notice when Canadian Kirk Johnson pulled out, drew the often cautious champion into a brawl.

Klitschko staggered a sluggish Lewis in the second round, but the champion responded in the third with a couple of big right hands.

"It definitely woke me up", Lewis said. "We're big guys. When we land punches it hurts. I hurt him more times than he hurt me.

Bureau Report