By David P. Greisman
As the nineties ended and Lennox Lewis, that decade’s heavyweight king, got progressively longer in the tooth, Lewis’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, would proclaim that 1996 Olympic gold medalist Wladimir Klitschko was the future of boxing’s marquee division.
By the time the first decade in the next millennium was halfway over, Klitschko’s career would see him teetering on the fringes of contention, in desperate need of salvation, a far cry from his place in the sport just five years prior.
Back in 2000, despite a blotch on his record from a 1998 loss to journeyman measuring stick Ross Purrity, Klitschko’s career would peak triumphantly with a unanimous decision victory over future IBF titlist Chris Byrd.
The win gave Klitschko the WBO belt that Wladimir’s brother Vitali had lost to Byrd just six months prior, and as Lewis began entering the ring less often, Wlad’s coronation was underway.
Klitschko defended his championship by rolling off five consecutive technical knockouts, stopping Derrick Jefferson, Charles Shufford, Frans Botha, Ray Mercer and Jameel McCline, and entering 2003 Wladimir was being avoided like the plague by possible opponents. Desperate to continue spotlighting their heir apparent, the matchmakers found Corrie Sanders, a part-time South African boxer who seemed more concerned in moonlighting as a golfer.
Sanders, though, possessed deceptively fast hands and considerable power, and an overconfident Klitschko would taste the canvas twice before the first round was over. Lacking the instinct to hold on, Wladimir would go down twice more and never make it out of round two, and the bubble had burst.
The remainder of the year was dedicated to rebuilding, and Klitschko did his part by taking out tomato cans Fabio Moli and Danell Nicholson. By April of 2004, Sanders had been stripped of the WBO belt due to inactivity, but was scheduled to face Vitali for the WBC title, newly vacated after Lewis finally announced his retirement. Two weeks prior to Vitali’s bout with Sanders, though, Wladimir would get a chance to regain the WBO trinket against Lamon Brewster. If Wlad could do away with Brewster and Vitali could gain revenge for his brother on Corrie Sanders, then the Ukrainian towers would finally achieve their dreams of simultaneously holding world championships.
It’s never that easy.
Brewster took an inhuman amount of punishment from Wladimir over four rounds, but he wouldn’t go away, and in the fifth Brewster would land huge hooks that forced Klitschko to nearly go down, with only the ropes preventing his fall. Seizing the opportunity, Brewster pounced, and just after the bell rang, Klitschko would collapse to the mat. In another shocker, referee Robert Byrd called a halt to the bout, feeling that Wladimir was out on his feet.
Two weeks later Vitali would pummel Sanders, but the victory was only half as sweet. Little brother Wladimir was suffering from a lack of confidence, a glass jaw or both. Meanwhile, Vitali had ascended to the spot that Wladimir was intended to take as the best heavyweight, and all one could say to those that had such high expectations for Wlad was to not count your heavyweight champions before they’re matched.
But sometimes the mark of a true champion is that they overcome adversity, achieving success by continuing to work until they achieve their goals. The big difference between the title quests of Wladimir Klitschko and Evander Holyfield is that while “The Real Deal” has aged to the point that he can no longer exhibit the form he once had, Klitschko may still be physically capable.
Losses aside, Wladimir Klitschko is undeterred, and will not settle until he can prove that the considerable hype of the past was merited. He has put together two more wins, but a technical decision over (a backpedaling) DaVarryl Williamson last October and a knockout this March of Eliseo Castillo (who barely threw a punch) have done little to freeze the criticism.
All that can change this September 24 at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, when Klitschko meets undefeated prospect Samuel Peter in an elimination bout for the number one rankings in the IBF and WBO sanctioning bodies. The winner will have the freedom to choose, having earned a mandatory shot at whoever comes out on top in the upcoming Chris Byrd-DaVarryl Williamson and Lamon Brewster-Luan Krasniqi fights.
Although Peter is rather raw and untested, he is the perfect foil for Wladimir Klitschko as a heavy-handed brawler brimming with confidence and champing at the bit to evolve from upstart status into a full-fledged contender.
The big question, as has been in each of Klitschko’s appearances since his loss to Brewster, is what will occur the moment that Peter lands a punch flush and upstairs. Can Wlad withstand it, or will he crumple yet again?
It may be that Klitschko does not actually have a glass jaw, but that he just suffered from such tremendous self-doubt following his loss to Sanders that he was no longer keen on being punched. This psychological shift, never healthy for a pugilist, may have led to Klitschko’s tiring himself out against Brewster by attempting to seal the deal early.
Ironically, Klitschko may never have to answer the $64,000 question. Against Peter, he may be able to use his height and reach to pound away against the Nigerian from a distance, and it is unknown whether Peter can handle the sort of onslaught that Brewster weathered. Peter has only recently stepped up in class of opposition, although names like Jeremy Williams and Taurus Sykes are still of lesser quality than a massive segment of Klitschko’s ledger.
Should Klitschko win, he will receive a surge of confidence and advance one step closer to being fully salvaged. He may no longer be the heir apparent, but with the brilliant flashes of potential that he has shown in the past, he could return from the graveyard of hopeless heavyweights and be resurrected as an heir possible.
The 10 Count
1. What happened to Showtime’s momentum from the first half of the year? After five stellar episodes of America’s Fight Night to lead off the first Saturdays in February through June, the network has followed with Samuel Peter-Taurus Sykes (which went two rounds), Jeff Lacy-Robin Reid (which was overshadowed by a reairing of May’s Corrales-Castillo shown before the broadcast went live) and the next two month’s worth of cards. Thanks to difficulties in finding an opponent for Zab Judah, September 3 was supposed to be headlined by junior middleweight beltholder Daniel Santos against Jose Antonio Rivera, but Rivera dropped out with an injury. Then a match-up of two heavyweight prospects, Owen Beck and Sergei Liakhovich was broken up by Liakhovich getting hurt. So now, in their places, viewers will get cruiserweights Wayne Braithwaite and Guillermo Jones, as well as Beck versus Ray Austin. Corrales-Castillo this is not, but it isn’t even Braithwaite-Jean Marc Mormeck, which entertained in April. And it’s not like October’s pairing of James Toney and Dominick Guinn is likely to be a showstopper either.
2. If Shannon Briggs, Ray Mercer and Jameel McCline fight on a pay-per-view and no one buys it, does the heavyweight division get better or worse?
3. Glad to see that Glencoffe Johnson will return to action in September, meeting George Jones on the final day of the month. A win for the “Road Warrior” will put him in contention to either face the winner of Antonio Tarver-Roy Jones III or, should negotiations for that fall through, the winner of the IBF title bout between Clinton Woods and Julio Gonzalez. For Johnson’s sake, I’d hope for the former, as in two bouts with Woods he fell victim to a dubious draw, which he avenged three months later with a decision victory. The more outright robbery came at the beginning of 2003 against Gonzalez, who received a horrific hometown decision. And for Tarver or Jones to turn down the payday that the other best light heavyweight would bring to the table would be a bad business decision.
4. Did you like Million Dollar Baby? If so, see Crash, which was written by Paul Haggis, who did the screenplay writing duties on the Academy Award-winning boxing flick.
5. According to the Associated Press, the WBC is planning to hold a dinner and fight cards to raise money to cover the financial settlement they owe Graciano Rocchigiani, the boxer who sued the sanctioning body for unjustly stripping him of his light heavyweight title in 1998. Rocchigiani was initially owed $31 million as decided by the lawsuit judgment, but when the WBC attempted to dissolve under bankruptcy laws, the parties negotiated on a smaller figure. With a lawsuit looming though over Fernando Vargas’s claim that they inappropriately gave Ricardo Mayorga a title shot instead of “El Feroz,” the WBC could be in trouble, although the damages inflicted upon Vargas are less blatant than those that Rocchigiani endured.
6. While Ricky Hatton may have taken the junior welterweight championship from Kostya Tszyu in June, his time at the top may fritter away if he doesn’t return to the ring soon. What is seemingly preventing “The Hitman” from capitalizing on his biggest win to date is a dispute with his promoter, Frank Warren. The 140-lb. weight class is wide open for unification, especially if Floyd Mayweather Jr. finally comes to terms with Zab Judah and steps up to welterweight. It may actually be in Hatton’s best interests for the Judah-Mayweather fight to fall through, as a fight with “Pretty Boy” Floyd would be a guaranteed pay-per-view success.
7. I’m curious to see how many people purchase Corrales-Castillo II, if the buyrates will exceed the half million that Winky Wright-Felix Trinidad did in May. As October 8 nears, the buzz should build, and Showtime will likely take advantage and place their amazing first bout on their OnDemand service. It will remain to be seen how detrimental HBO’s PPV of Tarver-Jones III the week before will be, but anyone who skips out on the lightweights in favor of the light heavyweights will be exhibiting poor decision-making skills.
8. Rumor is that Manuel “Shotgun” Gomez will be Antonio Margarito’s opponent on the undercard of the Vitali Klitschko-Hasim Rahman PPV in November. If true, this is fantastic news for Gomez, a 33-year-old that turned pro at sixteen, picking up seven of his ten losses extremely early in his career while young and inexperienced. After three years out of the sport, Gomez came back in 2001 to pick up a split decision over Miguel Angel Gonzalez and then knock out Kofi Jantuah with a left hook in the tenth and final round of their bout. A match with Margarito would be just, though delayed, rewards.
9. Random thought: I’d like to see Manuel “Shotgun” Gomez against Ike “Bazooka” Quartey.
10. Speaking of fighters who return from long layoffs, it sure looks like that Riddick Bowe comeback is going spectacularly, huh?
