Heavyweight legends Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson had known each other since they were teenage amateurs and Lewis had gone to the Catskill, New York, training camp of the late Tyson guardian and trainer Cus D’Amato to spar with Tyson. They hit it off and became friendly. They would go their separate ways and each would eventually blaze their way to the top and become the undisputed champion. By the late 1990s, Tyson was long past his best days and no longer a dynamic force, but the public still clamored to see him face Lewis, the clear No. 1 heavyweight, who had overcome a shocking upset knockout loss to Hasim Rahman in 2001 to starch him in an immediate rematch to regain the title. The only big fight left in the division was the summit meeting between Lewis and Tyson, a fight that had been talked about for years. But it was extremely difficult to make. Lewis was under exclusive contract to broadcaster HBO and Tyson had a similar deal with rival Showtime. But Lewis desperately wanted the fight and Showtime, owed millions by Tyson from loans, was desperate to recoup its money. At long last, they famously ironed out a deal for a joint pay-per-view that was nearly blown up when Tyson instigated a brawl at the announcement news conference that led Nevada officials to refuse to license him and for the planned April 6, 2002 fight in Las Vegas to be postponed. The promoters eventually found a place that would license Tyson and took the fight to Memphis, Tennessee, where the boxing world descended for their June 8, 2002 mega fight at The Pyramid. It became the highest-grossing boxing event ever ($106.9 million), a record since broken, but it was one-sided. The far superior Lewis battered and bloodied the faded Tyson, who showed heart and took his beating like a man. Lewis thrashed Tyson before knocking him out with a huge right hand in the eighth round to bring down the curtain down on a great heavyweight era that also included Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and Riddick Bowe, among others.