I remember Lewis going to court to stop Mike from having a warm up bout with Mercer a few months before their bout.

Mike had his busiest year in 2000 ending with Golota, he said it was going to be his last fight when interviewed before hand, he wanted out then.

Then he has a fight scheduled against David Izonreti in 2001 but it falls through for whatever reason, he signs to fight Lewis and wants a warm up as he wouldnt have fought for nearly 2 years and had only managed a few minutes of action in 2000, he has a fight arranged with Mercer but Lewis stops it, you could say Lewis was worried he might lose but its also a possibility (given Stewards reprimanding of Lewis between rounds how Mike is still dangerous and he needs to get him out of there and then after the fight praising Mike up) that Steward didnt want Mike sharpening up and getting fit.

In 2001 Mike went up to Catskills looking for Rooney and Steve Lott, neither were around, Steve found out and contacted Mike, they met up and Steve spoke with Mike about the possibility of joining up and training with Rooney again and taking a few soft touches and doing a few fights round the world to lift his profile and get him sharp then see how they get on skills wise before any title challenge, Mike was interested but as soon as he left the leaches that were around him at the time, inluding Finkel would not have him leave their fold, they were even screening who contacted him, they then pushed him in to a fight he knew he wouldnt be ready for.

All up to that fight you could see Mike knew he wasnt ready from the scuffle at the press conference, to the forced grin on the scales and timid ring walk, he didnt have the arrogant confident aura he gave off when he had that team around him, he knew he had words of wisdom, reassurance and tactics to fall back on when returning to the corner after a difficult round, instead of the fools that had to resort to rubbing a johnny full of water over his face in the Douglas fight, he was living on his power and chin alone after that.

Mike went to Catskills to get that team and try and do things right before the lewis fight.