But he wants a doctor to ensure a deep gash over the Ukrainian's left eye has healed.

World Boxing Council champion Lewis beat Klitschko last month when a doctor stopped their fight after six rounds and has opened talks for a rematch, most likely on December 6, rather than fight World Boxing Association king Jones.

"I'm opting for the rematch," Lewis said. "I enjoyed that fight. We just went at it. Obviously you have to play dollars and cents in, but I'm opting more for the rematch."

Lewis predicted a fifth-round knockout in the rematch, which would depend on the findings of an independent doctor, provided Klitschko's camp agrees to such a check-up. Lewis said his people were in the process of asking permission.

"We definitely want our own doctor to check him out. We're discussing that with them. There should be no problem with that," Lewis said.

"We want an independent doctor to check him out. I don't want to go through any training and then find out his eye won't hold up. We want to go in, check it out and go from there."

If Klitschko's eye has not healed sufficiently, Lewis said his likeliest choices would be retirement or a "big man-little man" showdown with Jones, the first former middleweight in more than a century to wear a heavyweight crown.

"We will have to look at other options," he said. "One is Roy Jones, or calling it a day or see what else is out there, but I don't see anything else that is out there."

Lewis, two months shy of his 38th birthday, said he has spoken with Jones and believed he would take less money than Lewis if the two fought.

"Me and Roy have talked on the phone. We're leaving our options open," Lewis said. "We wanted to get a sense of the numbers involved. I haven't found he's a hard guy to negotiate with, though."