By Jake Donovan
When 2007 became 2008, a rare glimmer of hope graced the heavyweight division. Already in the hopper were four bouts featuring the best six heavyweights in the world, including the division’s first unification match in nine years.
Discussed around the water cooler was the possibility of the right set of winners getting together to give boxing’s big boys something it hadn’t seen since Lennox Lewis retired – a world lineal champion.
All we needed to get things started was a Wladimir Klitschko win over Sultan Ibragbimov. Perhaps a win the other way wouldn’t have mattered all that much, though if there was any sort of consensus, it’s that Wlad was the best of today’s heavyweights. Therefore, his winning at least maintained the status quo while awaiting the other alphabet titlists to get their house in order before the division could proceed.
Ten months and several crappy fights later, they’re still trying to maintain house.
It didn’t help matters that Klitschko-Ibragimov turned out to be a terrible fight, even by today’s abysmal heavyweight standards. Still, the worst case scenario was to take a win today, look good the next time approach – there was always the Samuel Peter-Oleg Maskaev winner, though older brother Vitali was threatening to mark his comeback against said victor.
No problem, as another fight between top five heavyweights was planned for late May. Nikolay Valuev was fresh off of arguably the best performance of his career in a near-shutout of Sergei Lyakhovich, which set up a rematch with the only man to defeat him in Ruslan Chagaev.
Wlad facing the winner of Chagaev-Valuev II would’ve satisfied most demands to fill the void at the top of the division, regardless of what would happen in Peter-Vitali Klitschko.
However, when all was said and done, only one fight would emerge from that series – ironically, the one most fans expected to fall apart, which would be Peter-Vitali. The elder Klitschko held himself long enough to survive a training camp and tear through Peter in eight one-sided rounds before forcing the Nigerian to quit on his stool.
As far as health issues went, the same could not be said of two fresher undefeated talents in the division – Ruslan Chagaev and Alexander Povetkin.
Chagaev would twice postpone his rematch with Valuev before pulling out of the fight altogether, leaving him with just one fight for the second straight year.
The undefeated Povetkin managed to box his way into title contention, taking an eliminator over Eddie Chambers earlier this year to earn the fight to fight Wladimir Klitschko. He could’ve forced a title shot this past summer, but instead agreed to a tune-up while allowing Wlad to defend against his other mandatory, Tony Thompson.
Klitschko and Povetkin both won their fights, setting up what was supposed to be a December showdown of former Olympic gold medalists. That bout remains a future prospect, thanks to Povetkin suffering an injury during training camp, thus forced to postpone.
The good news for Klitschko, in addition to getting all but a free payday after last weekend’s stinker against a completely disinterested and badly faded former lineal champ Hasim Rahman, was that he had nine months to fulfill the Povetkin mandatory. This means he has much of 2009 to handpick whoever he wants to fight between now and then.
Given the way the present 2009 schedule is filling up, he’s better off going ahead with the mandatory whenever Povetkin is ready to return.
Before looking to the future, Valuev first has to get through this weekend. No problem on paper, as he’s slated to defend his alphabet belt against former cruiserweight and two-time lineal heavyweight king Evander “Why Is He Still Fighting” Holyfield in a bout that only adds to the mediocrity that has surrounded the division in 2008.
But even with a win this weekend, Valuev still has to next defend against the one man he sought all of this year – Ruslan Chagaev, who will first return in February against undefeated but unheralded – in fact, completely unknown – Carl David Drumond of Costa Rica.
Barring upsets and further injuries, Valuev-Chagaev should find its way to a living room no later than mid-June. Only by that point, the winner may no longer have a say in determining the latest entry in true heavyweight lineage.
The latest “two fights from a king” plan has former lineal cruiserweight champion and recent heavyweight arrival David Haye a crossed-T and dotted-I away from facing Vitali Klitschko sometime next June. Even though Haye enters such a fight (which, again, is far from official at this time) as a considerable underdog, fans are already salivating at the thought of the charismatic Brit pulling off the upset, thus setting up the brother’s keeper angle that would inevitably come with a Wlad-Haye showdown, a fight for which HBO is already clamoring.
However, already standing in the way of Vitali-Haye is another former cruiserweight, Juan Carlos Gomez, the mandatory challenger to the alphabet belt currently in Vitali’s possession.
Vitali, or even Wlad, could just as easily dump a title for the sake of making the most attractive matchup. History suggests little chance of that happening – HBO seems more than content to dump millions into Wladimir’s career while the fighter apparently has carte blanche over his opposition selection.
That said, the brothers now have in front of them mandatory challenges that are hardly of the pushover variety. Gomez is a tough out for any heavyweight (his fluke loss to Yanqui Diaz notwithstanding) and Wlad has a pair of undefeated Alexander’s in his future – Povetkin and Dimitrenko, both ranked in the top ten of most legitimate rankings, including Boxingscene.
If nothing else, the heavyweight division won’t have its shortage of compelling matchups in 2009, something sorely lacking this calendar year. But given the politics involved and the amounts it would cost to ask more than a few select fighters to step aside for the sake of divisional clarity, chances are we’ll be sitting around by this time next year still chanting, “two more fights until we crown a true heavyweight king.”
Jake Donovan is a voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .
