Boxing: Maloney: Stop now and retire at top, Lennox

FRANK MALONEY has told Lennox Lewis: "It's time to quit!"

His former manager has told the heavyweight king that he should get out of the game while he is still world champion.

Maloney, who worked with Lewis for over 12 years and took him to his first world title in 1992, believes that the champ was a chump against Vitali Klitschko last weekend.

The pair split acrimoniously in 2001 because Lewis believed he no longer needed a manager - he even promoted the fight against Klitschko himself.

And Maloney, who is running for London Mayor next June, reckons Lewis is clinging on to former glories when he's got nothing left to prove.

He said: "I'd like to see him go out at the top and I think he should go now - as a winner.

"As far as Lennox is concerned he's achieved everything. He's got nothing to prove to anyone."

Despite their differences Maloney reckons he would be able to give Lewis the right advice if he was still on his books.

He added: "If I was still with Lennox I'd sit him down, look at that fight and say, 'Look, Lennox, it was hard to get up for this fight - why do you want to keep doing this? Let's go out while you're still the champion.'

"I believe Lennox thinks no one else can beat him. But he must realise that the signs were there last Saturday that things are on the decline."

Roy Jones is ready to end Lewis's career, but he thinks that the British-born champion will avoid him.

Jones won the WBA version of the heavyweight title in March when he out-pointed one-dimensional John Ruiz, and he has wanted Lewis ever since.

"What I saw in Los Angeles last week just proved to me that Lennox is ready to be taken," said Jones. "He has dismissed me in the past but there is absolutely no way that he would have beaten me last week.

"I have been telling everybody for a very long time that I would be too fast and too clever for Lennox, and I think now that people believe me."

Lewis was lucky to keep his world heavyweight crowns when a cut eye and cheek ruled out Klitschko after six rounds.

Jones was watching from his Florida home and, within minutes of the fight's bloody conclusion, he was on the phone to television boss Kery Davis telling him that he could beat both fighters in the same night.

Jones added: "I know that I was not the only person watching in amazement last week at just how bad both of those fighters were. I just hope that Lennox can be persuaded to fight me and not take on Klitschko in a rematch."

Lewis has not yet decided what he will do following his gift from the doctor - but it could come down to a bidding war for his services.

A rematch against Klitschko could be worth as much as 15 million dollars, but a fight against Jones would be worth even more.

Jones would be five inches shorter, and nearly four stone lighter, but the American public adore him - and that is why a fight against him makes more sense than a rematch against Klitschko which would probably end in another bloody brawl.

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