Lewis was already considering retirement,
Here are the exact quotes from Lewis and Steward from 2003:

Jones, the WBA champion, now seems to be Lewis’s long-term target. “We’ll just keep fighting guys until the big fight with Roy Jones comes up and I think it will happen eventually,” Emanuel Steward, Lewis’s trainer, said.

Oh dear....

Lewis: Weight 250 +
height 6′ 5″
reach 84″

Jones: Weight 199
height 5′ 11″
reach 74″

lol.

And 11 days notice is hardly a fitting amount of time for unranked vitali to prepare for lewis, boswell is not lewis!!