McCall Shocks Lewis for Title : Boxing: Former champion outraged when fight is stopped in second round, canceling big-money bout against Bowe.

Oliver McCall, the sparring partner who would be king, is just that.

McCall, a 5 1/2-to-1 underdog, won the World Boxing Council heavyweight championship in a shocking upset early this morning by knocking down and stopping previously undefeated Lennox Lewis at 31 seconds of the second round.

“What can I say?” a tearful McCall said in his dressing room after the fight. “I am happy, I am thrilled. We knocked him out. We did it!”

Lewis admitted to being dazed by a left hook and right hand that knocked him down before about 7,000 shocked onlookers in the Wembley Arena. Then he became bitter.

“I just got caught with a lucky shot, and the referee seemed to help him, he really did,” said Lewis, the only British boxer to hold a piece of the heavyweight title in this century.

“I wasn’t badly hurt.”

Dan Duva, co-promoter of the fight, called the action of referee Lupe Garcia of Mexico “an outrageous stoppage.”

Frank Maloney, Lewis’ manager, said he would file a protest at the WBC convention in Seville, Spain, at the end of next month. The WBC board of governors can order an immediate rematch or a rematch after the new champion makes one voluntary defense.

Jose Sulaiman, president of the WBC, said he would be happy to consider a protest. But, he added, “An immediate rematch is seldom ordered.”

“If the money is right, I’ll give him a rematch and I’ll knock him down again,” McCall said.

Don King, McCall’s promoter, warned that if the Lewis camp was going to protest, Lewis would not get a rematch.

McCall, 29, said he had talked on the phone to former champion Mike Tyson, who is in an Indiana prison, and Tyson told him to keep throwing left hooks.

So, as Lewis started to throw a long right in the second round, McCall threw a left hook and then crashed home a right to the chin that dropped Lewis in a heap. He struggled up at the count of six and was weaving about when Garcia stopped it.

“He landed a great right punch,” Lewis said. “I tried to get up too fast. I was a little wobbly. But I was really surprised at the referee’s decision to stop the fight so early.

“The referee couldn’t speak English. When you nod your head, it means, yes, you’re OK.”

Lewis, however, did look badly dazed.

“I am absolutely sure of what I did. Lennox Lewis was knocked out,” Garcia said. “To allow more punches to Lennox Lewis would have fatal consequences. My duty is to protect the health of the fighter.”

“What did they want me to do--kill him?” McCall said.

Before the fight, Lewis and others referred to McCall as a sparring partner despite McCall’s No. 1 ranking.

McCall has sparred with the likes of Tyson, Larry Holmes, Tim Witherspoon, Ray Mercer and Pinklon Thomas.

But he said after his victory that he was always more than a mere punching bag for the fighters he sparred with.

“I was never a sparring partner,” said McCall (25-5). “I got the best of every round (in the gym)--Tyson, everyone.

“If he had gotten up, he would have gotten knocked out again. For those of you who think there was some controversy, in the first round I had him going. All it took was one punch that I had to set him up for.”

The victory knocked Lewis, 29, out of a megabuck fight against former champion Riddick Bowe. The fight was to have been held in March. Michael Moorer holds the World Boxing Assn. and International Boxing Federation heavyweight titles and is scheduled to fight George Foreman in November.

McCall said he would fight Bowe, but not in a title match because Bowe had insulted the WBC by throwing its belt in a trash can in 1991 before Bowe was stripped of the title that allowed Lewis to become champion.

A heavyweight champion, however, cannot fight without the title being on the line.

King said McCall’s first defense would be against Bruce Seldon, ranked sixth by the WBC, or Peter McNeely, a son of Tom McNeely, who made an unsuccessful title bid against Floyd Patterson.

King, shut out of the heavyweight picture when Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas, now is back in it. The controversial promoter would love very much to keep a piece of the title so that Tyson can challenge for it when he gets out of prison in Indiana early next year.

Lewis said he definitely wants to regain the title. His first defeat after 25 victories--including 21 knockouts--came in his fourth title defense.

Lewis, who weighed 238 pounds, earned $3.5 million. McCall, 231 1/4, was supposed to get $1 million.

One of McCall’s five losses was to Douglas on points July 21, 1989, although he had Douglas in serious trouble in the final minute of the fight.

In his next fight, Douglas knocked out Tyson in the 10th round in the biggest upset in boxing history.

“If Oliver had fought good (against Douglas) then we wouldn’t have had that kind of history,” King said of the victory that allowed Douglas to beat Tyson.