Lennox Lewis is remembered as a great heavyweight champion but there is one man he always avoided.

Until Oleksandr Usyk came along and repeated the feat in 2024, Lewis was the last undisputed heavyweight ruler when he beat Evander Holyfield to add the WBA and IBF titles to the WBC belt he won and defended since 1997.

He took on and beat the likes of Ray Mercer, Shannon Briggs, Frank Bruno, Mike Tyson and Vitali Klitschko, and lost only twice but avenged both of those defeats to Hasim Rahman and Oliver McCall.

Speaking to The Ring, however, Lewis admitted that the one heavyweight he always shied away from was the great George Foreman.

“No. I never wanted to fight George. It is a lose-lose situation. If you beat him, like I would have, then you beat an old guy and everyone hates you, because they loved George. And if he beats you, you got beaten by an old guy and you are rubbish.”

Foreman famously became the oldest man in history to become the world heavyweight champion when he came from behind on the cards to knock out Michael Moorer in 1994. He was 45 years old and the win came 20 years after he picked up his first world titles when he beat Joe Frazier by second-round knockout in 1973.

He also beat the likes of Ken Norton, Frazier again and Dwight Muhammad Qawi, though he lost the famous Rumble in the Jungle with Muhammad Ali in what was then called Zaire in 1974. After retiring in 1997, he became a successful entrepreneur known for promoting the George Foreman Grill and sadly passed away in 2025, though he will forever be remembered as a legend.