MAREEBA pugilist Lance Gostelow reckons champion boxing trainer Johnny Lewis might have a promising career as a psychic ahead of him.

Gostelow, who is based in Melbourne, was to defend his WBO Oriental and Africa light welterweight titles against the
Lewis-trained Gairy St Clair on March 18 at Flemington before the fight was cancelled under bizarre circumstances.

Lewis had a vivid nightmare about St Clair getting knocked out severely by Gostelow and rang his fighter to tell him about the bad dream.

St Clair, who was only returning to the ring as a one-off to help pay school fees, decided it would be safest to pull out of the bout.

After training hard for the fight, Gostelow is sure Lewis’s premonition would have come true.

"I think I would have knocked him out for sure," Gostelow said. "But it’s one of those things that you never really know until the final bell. "I just think it’s a really strange excuse.

"It’s good in that it says a bit about me that he didn’t want to fight me and that they didn’t make something up, like he injured his hand or something.

"It’s also generated a bit of free publicity."

Lewis said he had never had a nightmare about a fight before.

"I had a vision Gairy was fighting in Melbourne and was knocked out and they couldn’t bring him around,’’ Lewis said.

"It was bloody awful."

Gostelow is hunting a new opponent for March 18 but is not hopeful of finding someone suitable.

"I could get a fight but the hard thing is getting a fight against a credible opponent," he said. "I’ll be talking to my manager tonight about it but I’m not holding my breath because it’s such short
notice.

"It we can’t get anyone, then I’ll just have to go back to training."

Gostelow hopes another fight can be organised in either April or May and wants to head to the US mid-year for a training camp.

Share this article