Ray Mercer claims Lennox Lewis privately admitted he should have lost their controversial 1996 majority decision, saying Lewis told him directly “I know you won” in a conversation that Mercer says he reminds Lewis of every time they see each other.
Mercer made the allegation in an interview with James Slater on YouTube.
Yeah, I won that fight, man. He admitted it to me. He knows, a fighter knows. I won that fight. He said to me, ‘I know you won’. I told him, ‘Where’s my half of your cheque!’ He said okay. Every time I see him, I tell him I’m still waiting! They were setting him up to fight Tyson. So that’s what happened, that’s why they gave him the victory.
The 1996 fight matched two Olympic gold medallists, with Lewis awarded a highly contentious 10-round majority decision. Mercer, a former WBO heavyweight champion, has maintained he was robbed ever since. Lewis did not face Mike Tyson until 2002, when he stopped him in the eighth round. His next fight after the Mercer controversy was actually a rematch with Oliver McCall, whom he stopped to reclaim the WBC title.
Lewis retired in 2003 with two official professional defeats — losses to McCall and Hasim Rahman — both of which he avenged. Mercer argues that Lewis’s record should show three losses if the 1996 result had gone the other way.