It’s been a long time since Lennox Lewis punched someone in the face.

The former world heavyweight champion may never enter the squared circle as a fighter again, but that doesn’t mean he’s leaving the sport.

Lewis is working with Toronto businessman and president of Global Legacy Boxing Les Woods to make Toronto – and the rest of Canada – a hot spot for boxing.

“The end game is to create a platform for young, aspiring boxers to become great in their own countries,” Lewis told TSN.ca on Tuesday. “We’re going to promote them and have a stage for them to perform so the rest of Canada can see them. The rest of the world I should say.”

The goal behind Global Legacy Boxing - a promotion/management company - is to make Toronto a “Boxing City,” a place where Canadian boxers can develop their skills and eventually make money as professionals in their home country.

The 49-year-old Lewis was born in England, but grew up in Kitchener, Ont., and won Olympic gold for Canada in 1988. In order to excel his professional career, Lewis felt he had no choice but to move back to England. That’s what Global Legacy wants to avoid.

“My aim is to not only help amateur boxing, but to help professional boxing and help athletes in Canada that may feel they need to leave because I had to do that,” explained Lewis. “I want them to be able to stay and have a platform to grow and thrive from.”

The man who describes himself as a “pugilist specialist” says the way to keep boxers in Canada is to provide them with not only superior training, but also career planning from someone who has done it before.

“Becoming the heavyweight champion of the world, there has to be that planning, and I was the main planner in the decision-making of my career,” said Lewis, who holds both Canadian and British citizenship. “I would love to do that for somebody else that doesn’t know what to do.”

Lewis is considered as one of greatest boxers of all time, reigning as the undisputed world heavyweight champion in the late 1990s and early 2000s before retiring in 2004 at the age of 38.

Lennox Lewis

During his fighting days, boxing still had a lot of the glitz and glamour seen in the Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier era, with marquee heavyweight tilts keeping boxing in the mainstream. With the “Fight of the Century” between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao over and rising popularity of the UFC, boxing has lost some of its lustre. Lewis wants to bring that back.

“Fighting is sexy, so we have to bring the sexy aspect back to it,” said Lewis. “It’s on their [general public] minds, they want to see it, but it’s not here. So I say if there’s anybody to bring it, it’s me.” 

Woods agrees.

“Boxing through my eyes was always red carpets, limousines and champagne. I wanted to bring it back at that level here,” said the businessman.

Lewis says a key way to achieve that is having an elite heavyweight class, similar to the one he fought in with the likes of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

“I think heavyweights will always track a lot of attention because it can all end in one punch,” he said. “People love to see heavyweights just to hear the ‘ooh’ and the crash of the fist against somebody’s face.”

Global Legacy Boxing will premiere on Sept. 12 at the Sony Centre in Toronto with its first card. The fights will be announced at a press conference on July 27.