'Sixhead' taking time-off from ring
By Steve Ninvalle
Stabroek News
July 3, 2002
Former world boxing champion Andrew `Sixhead' Lewis is on an extended hiatus away from the ring and will return to boxing in another two months.
Lewis returned to Guyana in May to take care of some "personal business" and has disclosed that he is also using the time get mentally prepared for his return to the ring.
"I am giving myself some time before I step back into the ring. All great fighters who have lost have taken some time off before returning to the ring. Right now I'm thinking about taking about five or six months away from the ring," Lewis told Stabroek Sport.
Lewis became the first Guyanese fighting under the Golden Arrowhead to win a world title when he knocked out James Page in the seventh round to win the vacant World Boxing Association welterweight title in February 2001.
Lewis took care of Larry Marks in his first title defence but his second against wild swinging Ricardo Mayorga was halted early in the second round after a clash of heads left the champion with a gash over both eyes. That fight was ruled a technical draw.
Looking dehydrated Lewis was roughed up in the mandatory return bout against Mayorga before being stopped in the fifth round.
"Within the next three months I'll be mentally and physically fit to return to the ring. I just want to relax and take care of some business which I should have taken care of a long time back. I never had the time when I was training or when I was encamped. I also have to spend some time with my family. So I'll take the time now," the former champion said.
"When I get back into the USA it's back to business." The `Albouystown Cyclone' said that he has started road work and has done some basic training.
"A man has got to do what a man has got to do. People will talk but I have to take care of me. I'm a fighter and what I have learned I can't forget. I'm still hungry and I'll go back there and do it," he said, referring to regaining the world title.
"I can do it again. I was unprepared for my last fight but I'll be winning a title again. I have learnt a lot from that defeat. It showed that I have to do some work on my defence."
Asked if he had enough time to decide whether he would stick with his current trainers Lewis was ambivalent. "I'm in two minds. Sometimes I say I'll get rid of them and another time I say that I'll stick with them."
Lewis, who is now ranked fifth by the WBA reiterated that he will be moving up to the more lucrative junior middleweight division.
"It's a problem for me making the welterweight limit. I was trying to hold it down low. We never wanted anyone to know. I would be better at a junior middleweight."
The former champion concluded by expressing confidence in Wayne `Big Truck' Braithwaite becoming the next world champion from Guyana.
"There is no doubt in my mind that `Big Truck' Braithwaite will do it. He is a true warrior," Lewis said.