Lewis Makes It United Kingdom

And the winner, by a split decision, is . . . boxing.

Finally, they threw a fight where they didn’t throw the fight.

Finally, they held a championship boxing match that occasionally included boxing.

This morning there is finally a true heavyweight king.

And his name ain’t Don.

That is reason alone to celebrate.

Lennox Lewis’ unanimous decision Saturday over King subject Evander Holyfield at the Thomas & Mack Center is another.

Was it a classic fight?

For three rounds, maybe.

Is Lewis a classic champion?

Not even close.

But for nearly an hour here, two men sweated and slugged with no interruption or invasion or clear sign of Prince Naseem Hamed.

There were no parachutes, no bloody ears, no broken kneecaps.

OK, so there were no standing 10 counts, but there were also no 32-count indictments.

And in the end, there was no fix.

A fight that ended with a despicable lack of decision last March--Lewis was the clear winner, but a King-friendly judge helped make sure it was a draw--suffered no such problems this time.

You may not agree that Lennox Lewis was the winner, and now undisputed heavyweight champion.

But you cannot argue that at least there was a winner.

And that he earned it in the ring, not the back room.

Those two giant booms that rocked the joint after the announcement of Lewis’ victory should also serve to blow away at least part of the memory of one of the roughest stretches in the sports’ sordid history.

Said Lewis: “I went through some trials and tribulations in there.”

Said Holyfield: “I was just fighting.”

Common words. Gym words. Nothing about snakes or cheaters or crooks.

The biggest controversy occurred afterward, in the confetti-strewn stands, among those who could agree on the winner.

Many thought Holyfield, clearly the aggressor, was better.

Others thought Lewis had the clear tactical superiority of a champion.

I agreed with the first opinion in my heart.

But I agreed with the second opinion in my head.

I gave the fight to Lewis, 115-113.

Even though, in the end, I wanted to cheer for Holyfield.

With the exception of 7,000 fans cheering in British accents from the upper deck, in the end, seemingly everyone was cheering for Holyfield.

But boxing is rarely about strength as much as style.

And Holyfield, unable to hurt the bigger Lewis, frustrated in his attempt to wriggle inside Lewis’ longer reach, lost the battle of style.

“At times I was playing with him,” Lewis said.

The problem was, though, that at times, he was also playing with us.

He may be the first man in recent history to win an undisputed heavyweight championship bout despite taking entire rounds off.

He may be the first man to win such a fight while looking as if he just didn’t care.

But do not judge a boxer by his expression.

Among other things, this fight taught us that.

Just because he is a heavyweight doesn’t mean he has to snarl.

Just because he is 6 feet 5 doesn’t mean he has to slug like a villain in a Rocky movie.

A heavyweight can win a fight by simply fighting smart.

So Lewis did just that.

“This will be a performance that may make everybody forget what happened [in boxing] in this past year,” Holyfield said before the fight.

He came out looking as if he wanted to erase that memory.

With Lewis fans chanting at King, “You fat [bleep],” Holyfield came out snarling.

He swung early and often to win the first and third rounds.

Then in the fourth round, Lewis started chopping down those attacks.

By the seventh round, the fight had the looks of a keeper, with Lewis and Holyfield slugging it out across the ring with abandon.

But then in the eighth round, Lewis, perhaps exhausted, seemed to quit.

It looked as if Holyfield would win the fight, until Lewis then came back with several combinations in the 11th.

Always Saturday night, just when it seemed as though Holyfield would overpower Lewis, the bigger man moved into a different gear.

Turns out, it was the gear of a champion.

There was no one great punch thrown by Lewis, but there were enough.

There was a lot of charging and snorting and swinging by Holyfield, but not nearly enough connecting.

Lewis was as pretty in victory as the Nebraska football team.

But by connecting on 40% of his power punches to only 33% for Holyfield, he was pretty enough.

Afterward, as the exhausted fighters staggered out of the ring, it was announced that the recently indicted International Boxing Federation was refusing to give its belt to Lewis because he did not pay the $300,00 sanctioning fee.

Yes, boxing wins, but not unanimously.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com .