EVEN NOW, decades later, I still remember the day that Justin Fortune found out he had been selected to be Lennox Lewis’s next opponent. It was the summer of 1995, and I walked into Freddie Roach’s Outlaw Boxing Club Gym on the corner of Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard to find the place buzzing with the news. 

Justin himself was working like a madman on one of the heavy bags. The fight was scheduled to take place in just six weeks’ time, which meant there was no time to waste. This was his shot and he knew it. As did Freddie.

Watching Justin spar and train for the fight was frightening to behold. He was not a guy who believed in taking it easy or holding back in sparring, as some fighters preferred to. As he told me one day: “There are no friends in the ring.”

I remember especially watching him spar this young kid who’d just turned pro. His trainer felt that sparring Justin would help with his development. Within two rounds the poor kid’s body had taken such a pounding that it had to be stopped.

It was the same story with other sparring partners brave enough to share the ring with Justin and Freddie was worried — at this rate his fighter would run out of people to work with.

It was now that Freddie managed to secure the services of former heavyweight champ Tony Tubbs to spar with Justin.
There was only two weeks left of serious training by this point and Justin was mean, lean and focused.

Tony Tubbs by contrast turned up at the gym 15 minutes late, looking as if he’d come straight from the Burger King that was located five minutes up the street.

He was smiling and relaxed, and he looked like he’d never trained a day in his life. With him was his wife and trainer, an old guy who walked with a limp.    

As he waited for late-arriving Tubbs to get ready, Justin paced around the gym mumbling expletives under his breath, growing angrier by the second. I was certain that the former world champion was about to be massacred.

Finally the buzzer went, and instantly Justin moved in and started letting his hands go. Tubbs took every one of his shots on the shoulders and arms, before countering with a couple of short inside upper cuts to send Justin staggering back a few steps. Justin then regrouped and came back with another combination.

This time Tubbs shuffled a couple of quick steps to his right and caught him with a left hook to the head and a right uppercut to the body. 

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. By the end of the first round Justin was out of ideas, his confidence shattered against an overweight, unfit but more skilled opponent. Freddie brought the spar to an end after one more round. It did not bode well.

The fight against Lennox Lewis was taking place in Dublin and I was determined to be there. The evening before the fight I met Freddie at his hotel in the Irish capital for coffee.

Roach is of Boston-Irish stock and had something of an affinity with Ireland, though not to the point where he identified himself as Irish like many Irish-Americans I had come across.

But his no-nonsense Boston background sat comfortably in this part of the world and he seemed at ease. 

I asked him what he thought of Justin’s chances. I recall him telling me that if Justin was able to get inside Lewis’s jab and find the body then it could be an interesting night. I hoped he was right, but the memory of the sparring session with Tony Tubbs back in Los Angeles weighed heavily on my mind. 

“Now … making his way to the ring … from Los Angeles by way of Sydney, Australia … Justin Fortune!”

The spotlights picked out Justin walking towards the ring in a black robe. He had the hood up and his head down, emitting an ominous air that suited the dramatic piece of classical music he’d selected for his ring entrance. Freddie and Billy were walking just behind him on either side.

Climbing through the ropes into the ring, he raised his hand to the crowd. Freddie helped him out of his robe and he started limbering up, his thick shoulders and arms glistening under the harsh lights.

Lewis’s arrival was announced by a reggae number booming out over the PA.

Moments later he appeared. He looked huge compared to Justin and he didn’t so much walk as swagger in the direction of the ring, followed by his legendary trainer, Emmanuel Steward, and the rest of his team. On his face was nonchalance and supreme confidence. 

When he climbed through the ropes the difference in size between his 6’5” and 250lbs compared to Justin’s 5’9” and 218lbs was just ridiculous. 

The bell went for the first round and they met in the centre of the ring, Lewis pawing with the jab as Justin immediately began to bob and weave, duplicating the hours he’d spent bobbing and weaving under the rope tied across the ring in the gym with Freddie looking on. Lewis — with his signature languid style, his long arms hanging loose — was given an early fright when Justin came in low, closed the distance, and made contact with a right hook to the body.

Lewis’s face registered the effect as he moved away to get out of trouble. Justin kept coming forward, relentless, all the while moving his head to avoid the jab as he looked for openings. It was unfathomable but there he was, forcing the former world heavyweight champion to back peddle, this giant of a man who’d been in with and defeated the best in the business.

The bell sounded at the end of the first round amid the cheering of a crowd that had been roused into life by Justin’s guts and determination.  

But ultimately skills pay bills and by the third round Lewis had begun to find his range with the jab. Justin’s head movement slowed as Lewis’s punches started to take a cumulative effect.  

In the fourth round the former heavyweight champ let loose two vicious right uppercuts one after the other. Both connected and dropped Justin to the canvas. 

He got up, looking to continue, but instead of the anticipated eight-count the referee waved his arms to signal that the fight was over and, along with it, Justin’s shot at the big time.