"I should have came back and fought him if he fights like that...I thought his performance, no fault of his own, but he didn't have the proper talent in there to give him a good fight. I do say this is not wrestling though and we're not trying to batter a man to death. If you hit a guy with eight good punches, eight jabs, and he's not hitting you back and you're punching him in the face...if it was me, I would've knocked him out of there; no question," stated former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis as he shared his thoughts on Vitali Klitschko's win over Sam Peter and the current state of the heavyweight division. Check out what else he had to say about Vitali Klitschko, David Haye, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Andre Berto and much more.

PC: How is the New Year treating you my man?

LL: Good. I can't complain!

PC: What did you think of the year in boxing overall in 2008?

LL: Yeah, they had a couple of retired guys come back and some guys that think they could still make it also. And some guys that are old still have their shine.

PC: Yeah, because it appeared Bernard Hopkins can turn back the clock, but time seems to have caught up with Roy Jones. What do you think of the year those 2 guys had?

LL: Yeah, definitely time has caught up to Roy Jones. It was weird seeing a man do what he usually does to people have it done back to him and as far as Bernard Hopkins is concerned, it's elementary with him every time, you know what I'm saying? He's not physical, but he's definitely mental. He knows what to do to be successful.

PC: You've been around the game for quite some time so I'm sure you could give me an accurate answer to this question. Miguel Cotto suffered his first loss last year. Was that one of those beatings where you learn from it and come back stronger or did that fight take some fights from his career?

LL: Nah, I think that fight will take some fights out of him. Cotto is a good fighter, but all it breaks down to is training. You have to train to fight a certain way. You could fight a fight in a bad way or you could fight it in a good way and in that instance, it was a bad fight fir him.

PC: It also looks like he will be fighting Margarito again after his tune-up in February and Margarito's fight with Mosley, which I think is a horrible mistake right now.

LL: Wait, he wants to fight Margarito again?

PC: That appears to be the plan.

LL: Yeah, a man can grow from a fight, but that dog that bit you when you were a kid, you still remember that dog.

PC: I agree 100%. If you look at your knockout losses to McCall and Rahman, you weren't taking the damage that Cotto was taking round after round. It was almost a matter of you just getting careless and caught so for you to take immediate rematches made a little more sense than Cotto rematching Margarito so soon. It would be like Vargas taking a rematch with Trinidad after one tune-up.

LL: Right, right! He was basically in a situation like nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and he never made out from it. A lot of people say maybe that fight was too soon for him and I would have to say, yeah, it was too soon for him, but there is no tune-up for a Margarito. There were no proper preparations for him so when Cotto went in there, he was definitely surprised. He wants to do it again? Mentally, can he do that all over again? Later on would always be better than sooner.

PC: Margarito brings in a hard aspect to train for and that's toughness.

LL: Yeah! Well, you can train for it in a sense that you can go in there against a bulldog that hounds you every round. There is no question Cotto has the speed to contend with Margarito, but as far as keeping focus throughout the entire fight, it's lacking.

PC: I've wanted to ask you a similar question. I'm sure you knew what you were getting when you were training to fight Mike Tyson, but were you able to find guys that can bring it like Mike in sparring and camp?

LL: Oh yeah, absolutely. And even if you don't, you can find a guy that can give it his absolute all for at least 2 rounds. Then, after 2 rounds, switch it up to another guy that can give you 100% for 2 rounds and that's 4 good rounds out of the way.

PC: In 2008, we heard numerous comeback rumors about you. Do you think 2009 will finally be the year that fans and media alike give up on your comeback?

LL: Nah, you know what I mean? If you can get Rahman to come back and train for 2 weeks and take on the champion of the division right now, and he takes him 8 rounds, I'm saying, "Boy, if I train for double that." He trained for 2 weeks. If I train for 4 weeks or 6 weeks, I can definitely do a lot better than that (laughing). No, joking aside, I don't ever think it will be behind me because the world is in hunger for a great heavyweight champion, or at least a champion that does not batter a guy to death. This is not wrestling. We don't want to make a man submit in the corner. People want to see knockouts. They want to see those Pacquiao kind of fights; especially from the heavyweights. They don't want to see a guy get hit with eight unanswered punches and you cannot knock him out. I'm talking about Peter. I should have came back and fought him if he fights like that. You're getting paid a lot of money and this is the heavyweight championship of the world and you're not in shape? What is going on? This is your time. Out of all of the guys now that are up there, they are guys that I used for sparring when I was on top of my game and now, they're having championship fights.

PC: Did you ever think, with all of Vitali's injuries, that we would see him back in there and what did you think of his performance?

LL: I thought his performance, no fault of his own, but he didn't have the proper talent in there to give him a good fight. I do say this is not wrestling though and we're not trying to batter a man to death. If you hit a guy with eight good punches, eight jabs, and he's not hitting you back and you're punching him in the face…if it was me, I would've knocked him out of there; no question. The fight was lackluster because he didn't do nothing. At the end of the day, people will say, "Oh, he looked great!" He looked great because the guy wasn't hitting him back. He wasn't throwing no punches. Let's see how good he would have looked if the guy had thrown a couple of punches.

PC: I agree. Sam Peter offered nothing that night.

LL: You know what I mean? So of course you're going to look great. Like we said, you can only do what you can do, but the only fault I can blame him for is not knocking him out. You've come back now and fought the main guy in the division and got your title back, but now who are you going to fight? He's looking at me, but I've been there and done that. What you need to do is fight your brother.

PC: I think that is the most intriguing fight that can be made in the division. No matter who Vitali beats, he always call you out afterwards.

LL: Yeah, he always calls out me. Even when I was doing some maintenance work on my body, he noticed and he said it seems like I was training for a fight. I was just doing maintenance.

PC: He's definitely trying to get you from behind the mic.

LL: Yeah and I know the plan. The plan is to wait until I have been finished for 6 years, call me back for some money and try and beat me and take the shine away. The only thing is the shine will always be there because I don't need to do that. He needs me more than I need him.

PC: I think Holyfield was robbed against Valuev of his victory, but is it to the point where you look at a guy like Holyfield and say, "Enough is enough!"

LL: I thought Evander definitely won that fight. Evander is the old man in the game. There are a lot of guys out there that he could still beat and give problems to. As far as him doing that, I mean, ah man, when is enough enough? He definitely boxed Valuev wisely.

PC: Can you explain the role you will be playing in David Haye's career?

LL: That's interesting that you say that because I can't say anything right now until I talk to David Haye. I'm going to have to give you a block on that one because me and him are still talking.

PC: If people didn't believe in Manny Pacquiao before last year, I'm sure he made some believers by now. What did you think of his year and the way he dominated Oscar De La Hoya?

LL: You know what I couldn't understand really? I actually thought De La Hoya was going to win that fight and I don't know what made me think that. The fact that he was bigger and he would box the little guy and take advantage of the situation…

PC: I will never in a million years understand him coming in as the smaller fighter on fight night.

LL: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say because when I seen the fight, I actually felt sorry for Oscar. Boxing is a sport that really keeps you honest. The honesty of it is if you're out of shape, it will show, if you're not in great shape, it will show and if you're old, it will definitely show and everything showed that night. It shows you've been fooling yourself for awhile and a man said the other day, "Boy, we have a new bronze man in town; Oscar!" He definitely has lost the golden shine in that fight.

PC: I think it will be tough to put Oscar back together again. He was always HBO's golden goose and extremely popular as far as revenue goes, but to quit in the manner in which he did after offering nothing is a hard sell.

LL: No, they won't be able to sell him like they once used to be able to and even when you watch the fight against Felix Sturm, he was done back then.

PC: Who would you give your "Fighter of the Year" honors to? Calzaghe beat legends in back-to-back fights, Pacquiao moved up to defeat David Diaz and then moved up again and beat De La Hoya and Margarito knocked out Kermit Cintron with a body shot and then brutalized Cotto. Who would you pick?

LL: That's a tough one. It's tough to pick between Margarito and Pacquiao. I actually like both of them. As far as who I would pick, we would have to ask all of the experts on that one. I haven't done enough research to pick between the two. Who doesn't like Margarito after what he done to Cotto?

PC: You will be down here for the Berto-Collazo fight in a week. Is this your first trip to the South and are you looking forward to it?

LL: Yeah, definitely! How is it out there anyway?

PC: It's a blast down here man. My man Floyd Mayweather Sr. seems to have a blast every time he comes down. He was even talking about moving down here. A lot of women down here.

LL: Yeah, that's what I've heard.

PC: What do you think of the fight itself?

LL: Berto has beautiful talent, but his talent is held up in a sense. When I say it's held up, that breaks down to trainer, training and all of that. What he has to realize is each fight, the promoters are looking for the money. Each fight, the promoters are saying, "Okay, who else is out there for him to fight and make the most money?" In doing that, each fight is going to get tougher and that means his training is going to have to get tougher, you know what I mean? All of a sudden, now you're going to go up against a better guy than before so you have to make sure you can beat these guys in training. He has the power to beat him and whenever you fight, you gain experience, but you just don't want to meet that guy that you weren't ready for.

PC: What fight was that for you? What fight did you go into camp knowing you had to step your game up?

LL: I would say every fight because for every fight, I had to step my game up because for me, that was the fight; the training. If I made the training like the fight, then the fight was easy. That's a secret in a sense, once you can get the training like the fight, because once you get in the fight, it's like, "Yo, I've sparred five different guys for this fight every day. This is just one guy. He's going to go through the same rounds that I have to go through, but I've been there already. This is what he has to go through now." I always got it done in the ring.

PC: Well, I look forward to seeing you when you come down my man. Give me a holla when you get down here.

LL: I will man. Sounds good.