Lewis Hits, Runs, Wins Unanimously : Boxing: WBC champion gets ahead of Tucker, knocking him down twice, then hangs on to win decision.

Lennox Lewis, handed the World Boxing Council heavyweight championship in a London news conference last January, certified his title in a ring Saturday night.

Lewis (23-0) knocked down Tony Tucker (48-2) twice, survived his late-rounds rally and won a unanimous decision before about 15,000 at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center.

The fight between two 6-foot-5, 235-pound heavyweights was often fierce and pitched. At other times it was an ordinary fight. Both fought cautiously early, then Lewis dominated the middle rounds. But when Tucker began following his effective left jabs with straight right hands to Lewis’ head, Lewis began retreating.

By then, though, Tucker was too far behind.

The judges had Lewis winning, 118-111, 117-111 and 116-112. The Times card had Lewis, 117-111.

Lewis defeated the man most consider the undisputed heavyweight champion, Riddick Bowe, in the gold medal bout at the 1988 Olympics. Now Lewis looks ahead to a rich unification bout against Bowe next year.

He earned $7,836,840 Saturday, Tucker, $1,050,000.

Lewis, the only English--born in East London, raised in Canada--heavyweight champion in this century, landed his vaunted right hand on Tucker’s chin many times. He saluted his challenger’s courage.

“I thought I had him a couple of times. He’s got a great chin and a lot of guts,” Lewis said. “Nobody can take a punch like Tony Tucker.”

Lewis, 27, put Tucker down twice with crashing right hands. Tucker went down briefly in the third round from a right counter and again 12 seconds into the ninth when Lewis started fast, trying to finish his 33-year-old challenger.

Also Saturday night, Gerald McClellan of Freeport, Ill., upset Julian Jackson and won the WBC middleweight title with a fifth-round technical knockout. And Julio Cesar Chavez stopped Terrence Alli in the sixth round in a junior-welterweight title fight.

Chavez was facing his toughest opponent since his last-second knockout of Meldrick Taylor in 1990, when Chavez trailed on points.

This time, no one had Alli ahead when the match was stopped in the sixth round. But this time, there were boos for Chavez from a big boxing crowd.

The reason for the displeasure was the manner in which referee Carlos Padilla stopped the bout. Alli, from Guyana, had been down earlier in the sixth.

But Alli, who fought bravely throughout, got up quickly. He was taking considerable punishment in his own corner when Padilla indecisively and tentatively made a gesture to stop the fight.

He half-grasped Alli about the waist, then appeared to change his mind. Finally, he made a hand motion that signaled the bout’s end, and the booing began.

Padilla twice replaced Alli’s dislodged mouthpiece at junctures that didn’t seem to qualify as “breaks in the action,” as rules require.

Chavez, who weighed 140 pounds and earned $1 million to Alli’s $285,000, was as sharp as ever. He was ahead on all three judges’ cards, 50-45, at the finish.

He took Alli apart with the usual artillery--crushing left hooks to the ribs, short and long rights to the chin and uppercuts inside.

But through it all, Alli, though buckled and rocked perhaps a half-dozen times, fought toe to toe, punch for punch. And when he took a bad beating in the fifth round and survived, the crowd saluted him.

Chavez, in raising his record to 86-0 or 85-1--depending on who’s counting--moves on to his greatest challenge: a long-awaited Sept. 10 match against Pernell Whitaker in San Antonio.

McClellan-Jackson was a spectacular match between two hard punchers.

The finish was stunning. McClellan (28-2) landed a great shot on Jackson’s chin, which knocked him flat on his back.

But Jackson (46-1) climbed back on his feet. McClellan drove him to a corner, where he landed another devastating right hand on Jackson’s chin. The champion tumbled forward, but again got back on his feet.

Jackson staggered along the ropes, with referee Mills Lane counting. But after a long look at Jackson, Lane stopped the bout.

Boxing Notes

Hector Camacho struggled over the first three rounds with Pittsburgh journeyman Eric Podolak, but got a TKO victory in the fifth round and earned $100,000. . . . Meldrick Taylor stopped Henry Hughes of Cleveland in two rounds and earned $30,000.