by David P. Greisman
All boxers, in their own minds, are champions, from the actual titlists to the losers who nonetheless proclaim themselves “people’s champs,” as well as the prospects and contenders who insist they will inevitably rule their divisions.
Calvin Brock confidently places himself in the latter group, predicting his ascendance as the future heavyweight king. In the nationalistic eyes of some, he is seen as the savior who can recapture boxing’s marquee division for America.
Brock, of course, won’t argue otherwise.
After Brock’s boring unanimous decision over Timur Ibragimov this weekend, perhaps that position needs to be reevaluated.
In the Ibragimov fight, Brock was pensive with an inconsistent jab, and his occasional offense was often inaccurate, sometimes amateurish. While Ibragimov was an awkward opponent who was unwilling to make a fight, Brock looked little like a boxer who needed to make a statement, instead content to go the distance and receive the victory.
Brock confirmed as much in the post-fight interview, calling Ibragimov “a safety-first boxer,” insisting that the booing audience didn’t matter as long as he avoided the loss and moved on to the next bout and the next opportunity to rise through the ranks.
The problem, though, is that despite maintaining an undefeated record, Brock’s career and momentum have stalled.
Only 17 months ago, Brock was the co-feature on an important edition of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, his bout with Clifford Etienne working to establish Brock’s name in preparation for the ESPN pay-per-view show three months down the line.
By knocking out Clifford Etienne, Brock did his part, adding a recognizable name to his ledger. In the process, he built anticipation for his April fight with a Jameel McCline who had come off of a razor-thin decision loss to titlist Chris Byrd.
Against McCline, Brock fought back aggressively from a seventh-round knockdown, rising from the canvas and winning the round. He had faced adversity, come back to get the decision and was seemingly better prepared for future challenges.
And then he disappeared.
Brock went from ESPN2 and a pay-per-view to keep-busy fights, knocking out journeyman Kenny Craven on the undercard of Arturo Gatti-Floyd Mayweather and settling for a brief televised clip of the action. Five months later, Brock had a homecoming bout in Charlotte, N.C., but again, it was off television and against a journeyman. Brock took the decision against David Bostice, but suddenly the year that had started off so well had ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but just muteness.
Another year, another journeyman. Brock’s first fight of 2006 was against Zuri Lawrence, a heavyweight with no knockouts who had recently upset McCline. The saving grace was that Brock-Lawrence was on the televised undercard of the Shane Mosley-Fernando Vargas pay-per-view, a show that brought in a good amount of buys.
Brock capitalized on the chance for publicity, ending a mediocre bout with a frightening one-punch knockout. Triumphant, here was the capability of a man who, the previous summer, had held a conference call in order to argue why, with the WBC mandating Vitali Klitschko-Hasim Rahman, he was a proper challenger for a rumored fight with Klitschko.
In the heavyweight division, power equals excitement, and excitement can equal the power to get major fights, large purses and title shots.
Brock has received none of the above.
His career should not be about next time, about keeping busy, staying safe and waiting for the opportunity to come. Instead, it should be about taking chances to prove himself, forcing the situation to come sooner rather than later.
While Brock was busy outpointing Timur Ibragimov, Timur’s cousin Sultan – not yet a contender like Brock – had lined up a title eliminator fight against Ray Austin for the right to challenge Wladimir Klitschko.
The major names in the heavyweight division are already making fights for the rest of the year. Hasim Rahman will defend against Oleg Maskaev. Samuel Peter might face James Toney. Klitschko could meet Shannon Briggs.
And Brock, the supposed future of the division, is once again waiting.
The 10 Count
1. On the undercard of Brock-Ibragimov, highly-touted prospect Joel Julio was thoroughly out-boxed for 12 rounds by fellow undefeated welterweight Carlos Quintana. Although the loss brings the first blemish to Julio’s record, the young fighter should take the defeat as a learning experience dished out by a talented foe. The fight was less like Bernard Hopkins’ brilliant performance against Felix Trinidad and closer to Joe Calzaghe’s utter dominance of Jeff Lacy, in that it shows a young boxer’s need to incorporate different strategies and skills into his repertoire while he is still developing.
2. Joe Mesi won his second comeback bout, taking a six-round unanimous decision over Stephane Tessier on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. Tessier, a 3-7 tomato can, was a late replacement for 17-11-1 Daniel Frank, who at least had the distinction of being knocked out by the lower tier of recognizable heavyweight names. Nonetheless, Tessier was able to land punches, a reality that Mesi acknowledged as being due to his own slowed reflexes. Yet while Mesi believes his two recent fights prove that he is not in any additional danger of experiencing another subdural hematoma, his logic is faulty and based off of incomplete evidence. Yes, he has been punched in his last two fights without any fatal effect, but the onslaught came from tomato cans and not from dangerous opponents who have the potential of injuring him. I don’t see Mesi in the ring with Samuel Peter, and, frankly, I’d prefer to never have to.
3. Boxers Behaving Badly: The verdict is in for Clifford Etienne. The former heavyweight contender who went from prison to pugilism will spend the rest of his life in jail after being given a 150-year sentence for crimes committed last August, according to the Associated Press. The charges included two counts of armed robbery, attempted carjacking, two counts of second-degree kidnapping, attempted second-degree murder and two counts of attempted manslaughter. To think that it was just 17 months ago when I was on a conference call for Etienne’s fight against Calvin Brock, and the promoters were touting the education of Brock, Etienne, Juan Diaz and Billy Irwin. How sad.
4. Floyd Mayweather has dropped the IBF welterweight paper title he picked up by beating Zab Judah, the same trinket Judah retained after losing to Carlos Baldomir. After paying approximately $150,000 in sanctioning fees, Mayweather, perhaps rightly, refused to defend against his mandatory opponent Mark Suarez, opting instead for bigger fights. Still, it’s quite a high price to pay for a dubious claim of being a four-division champion.
5. Speaking of Judah, he is now a promotional free agent after being released by Don King, according to a report by Dan Rafael. With his financial distress, history of immaturity and recent trouble over his low blow, rabbit punch and the subsequent ring chaos in April’s Judah-Mayweather bout, Judah may have major problems finding a promoter who will sign him. Amusingly, Judah has told various members of the media that he may start his own promotional company, but at the same time he would not be against signing with another promoter.
6. Such is the way of fighters these days, getting away from the perceived promotional corruption by starting their own companies without realizing the benefits of having a Don King, Bob Arum or Gary Shaw, to name a few. They’re damned no matter what they do, and thus we see an amount of fighters’ fledgling promotional outfits that rivals the number of Hollywood actors with their own studios. And as scribe Thomas Hauser pointed out three years ago, most of these outfits couldn’t exist without the assistance of the television networks carrying their fights. Aside from the rarity of an Oscar De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions, these fighters rarely have much of a stable, and their business ventures are often meant solely for keeping money in their pockets instead of paying their former promoters, with the networks acting as accessories.
7. As for De La Hoya, he announced this week that he would not fight again in 2006 but was planning to take on Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his final bout next May. So, with De La Hoya’s farewell nearly a year away, contrast that with the never-ending career of Evander Holyfield, who told the Mobile Press-Register that he planned on fighting for two more years. At 43, Holyfield is 10 years older than De La Hoya, and I doubt if Holyfield even has enough left in him to beat Ricardo Mayorga, much less contend with the heavyweights.
8. Finally, a way for chess enthusiasts/former pugilists Vitali Klitschko and Lennox Lewis to return to the ring: Chessboxing. A fascinating article on ESPN.com detailed the sport, in which competitors face off in six rounds of chess mixed in with five rounds of boxing. Winning can occur by knockout, checkmate, referee’s decision or if one’s opponent runs past his 12 total minutes for chess. The real question, though, is if Garry Kasparov will start training at the Kronk Gym.
9. Sign number 43 that you’re way too into boxing: You can’t listen to the radio without associating songs with the boxers who used them as entrance music.
10. Lennox Lewis Watch: By my count, the former heavyweight champion said “definitely” 45 times during Saturday’s Boxing After Dark broadcast. Disappointingly, he only used “absolutely” once, after Max Kellerman mentioned Carlos Quintana’s past basketball experience and then asked Lewis if he played, too. Of course, that prompted another classic Lewis verbal slip-up: “A lot of different basketball players play basketball.” Thanks, big guy. Now I know why your appearance in that Red Stripe Beer commercial was a non-speaking part.
