Lewis turns to Klitschko

Lennox Lewis has struck a compromise deal with Vitali Klitschko to keep his latest world heavyweight title defence in Los Angeles alive.

Lewis had few other options but to look towards the towering Ukrainian after his original opponent Kirk Johnson pulled out through injury last week.

Klitschko had been due to meet American Cedrick Boswell on the Staples Center undercard on June 21, with a view to fighting Lewis later this year.

Now officials have only two weeks to sell a fight which later in the year would have been a major pay-per-view event.

Lewis versus Johnson was not a paid-for fight and it is almost inconceivable that there would be enough time to market the Klitschko fight in such a short period of time.

As such Lewis will certainly have to settle for a smaller purse than he could have reasonably expected at a later date.

Klitschko, who will no doubt have been paid well to step up at such late notice, jumped at the chance to upgrade and challenge for Lewis’ WBC and IBO titles.

Despite being the WBC’s mandatory challenger Klitschko had found the champion hard to pin down since Lewis initially pulled out of a proposed meeting in January.

He sued and as a result the WBC decided to withhold their sanctioning from the proposed Lewis-Johnson fight. They will be back on board for a fight which is now Lewis’ mandatory defence.

Klitschko and his brother Wladimir have both held the WBO title but despite their vociferous campaigns they have so far been unable to secure major heavyweight fights because of their lack of marketability.

Wladimir ruled himself out of the equation for the immediate future after suffering a shocking four-minute loss to South African veteran Corrie Sanders in March.

Wladimir was widely regarded to be the most promising of the two brothers and as such his loss rather unfairly reflected badly upon his older brother.

The 6ft 7ins, 31-year-old Vitali has won 30 of his 32 fights by stoppage and the only blot on his record is a WBO title defeat to Chris Byrd in April 2000, when he was forced to withdraw with a shoulder injury.

Klitschko had won the title with June 1999 second round flattening of Herbie Hide at the London Arena.

Lewis has not fought since beating Mike Tyson in Memphis one year ago. He had initially intended to meet Tyson again but that rematch now looks as far away as ever.