By David P. Greisman
Hasim Rahman and Monte Barrett hinted multiple times in the lead-up to their battle for the WBC interim heavyweight title belt that their bout would be an entertaining slugfest, on a similar level as Barrett’s February knockout of Owen Beck, which so far this year has been the only palatable fight featuring boxing’s big men.
Each man wanted the proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow; in this case, a victory meant a mandatory showdown with the champion, Vitali Klitschko, and the possibility of becoming the undisputed, unequivocal king of the heavyweights. Instead, through twelve rounds of sludge that was dominated more by the booing of those in attendance at Chicago’s United Center than by either pugilist’s impotent arguments for stardom, Rahman earned a unanimous decision and, judging by his performance against Barrett, the right to a beatdown at the hands of the 6’7” Ukrainian.
This week’s edition of Fighting Words lays out my reasoning for writing off Rahman’s chances against Klitschko, using the Baltimore native’s efforts in the ring with Barrett to prognosticate the likely future results when “The Rock” and “Dr. Ironfist” finally meet. The 10 Count opines on the undercard results, as well as recent news involving Fernando Vargas, Bernard Hopkins, Clifford Etienne and The Contender.
Hasim Rahman’s Full Bore Assault
In a heavyweight division that is more depressing than impressive, the need has been for a contender or champion to arise that would energize people en route to a prolonged reign, curing the muddle and blight that has been a plague for so long.
The pleas would not be answered by Hasim Rahman or Monte Barrett, neither of whom showed much desire to take what they feel is theirs, the chance to be champ, to prove that they belonged
Instead, Rahman and Barrett boxed at a vexingly slow pace, with Rahman leading most of the fight as the aggressor behind his jab, waiting for Barrett, who spent a majority of the night circling and retreating, to back into a corner, where Rahman would drop a right hand and stun Barrett.
It wasn’t until the twelfth round that caution was thrown to the wind, but the back-and-forth trading was still less than what had been expected in place of the present stinker. Where was the hunger, the fireworks, the sealing of one’s own fate by not letting the bout rest in the hands of the judges?
The three scorecards read for Rahman, but had there been tarot cards consulted after the anticlimactic pay-per-view main event, they would have predicted a bleak fate for his next fight. This man, who had stunned virtually everybody when he knocked out Lennox Lewis in 2001, showed little promise at being a dangerous foil for Klitschko, and looked more like the next in a line of victims.
Desire is Klitschko’s Advantage
Since defeating Corrie Sanders for the vacant WBC title, the criticism of Vitali Klitschko and his ascension to the top of some publications’ rankings had little to do with his actual performance in the ring.
Many felt that he was undeserving, raised prematurely following his valiant loss on cuts to Lennox Lewis in June 2003 and two-round stoppage of a severely bloated Kirk Johnson six months later. His victory over Sanders and subsequent first defense against Danny Williams had Vitali beating up on overweight opponents that had done little to earn their title opportunities.
Sanders had weighed in ten pounds heavier than in his knockout of Vitali’s younger brother Wladimir a year prior, and it showed. Having already been semi-retired and pursuing a career as a golfer, the South African southpaw remained inactive before meeting Vitali, and was rendered the same after eight rounds.
Williams got his shot by weathering a Mike Tyson storm and then dispatching an injured foe, and the already-large Brit topped the scales at 270 and was put on his bottom in four different rounds before referee Jay Nady called a halt in round eight.
Johnson, as noted above, was out of shape at 260 pounds, 17 more than he had been in his fight prior to Klitschko and 18 more than his first fight afterwards.
And even Lewis was heavier than at any point in his career, although his excuse seemed semi-valid, that he had trained lightly having originally been preparing to face the aforementioned Kirk Johnson.
So Klitschko had already borne criticism before signing to face Rahman, but his behavior after their April fight was postponed (due to Vitali suffering an injury and needing surgery) provided little assistance in the matter.
While rehabbing, the fight with Rahman was pushed back repeatedly, to June, July, all the way into September, and meanwhile Vitali was calling out James Toney, Lamon Brewster, Calvin Brock and Oleg Maskaev, seemingly everyone but his mandatory opponent. Rahman risked his chance to challenge Klitschko by facing Barrett, and press releases and conference calls were held as a result.
And all this had little to nothing to do with Klitschko’s abilities in the ring.
Once between the ropes, Vitali is active, seeking to throw and land often, using his height and size as a natural advantage while proving that he was not the stereotypically cautious European boxer. Against Williams, Klitschko peppered his foe repeatedly with combinations, much in the same manner Antonio Tarver did in his rematch with Glencoffe Johnson, keeping him off balance and limiting any susceptibility to being mauled on the inside.
While the chance always remains that Rahman could reinvigorate himself, like he did while on the comeback trail all of last year, his energy level versus a backpedaling Barrett recalled the Rahman that underperformed against John Ruiz, David Tua and Evander Holyfield.
Klitschko needs only to use his reach to hammer Rahman from the outside, make him attempt to bring the fight, and then step to the side and respond with hard counters. Rahman will need to show more, do more and be more than he was against Barrett in order to be a serious threat to Klitschko, but thanks to injuries Rahman suffered in the bout, it is unknown when that time will come.
Whereas before Rahman had been waiting for Klitschko to finish rehabilitation, and while a phenomenal Rahman performance would have meant that Klitschko would have more to prove, the tables have been switched. Now, Klitschko will be waiting for the cuts near Rahman’s left eye to heal, and salivating at the chance to put The Rock in a hard place.
The 10 Count
1. As magnificent as Luis Collazo looked in retiring Miguel Angel Gonzalez on the undercard of Rahman-Barrett, it is insulting for the contest to greedily be promoted as a title bout. Collazo holds the WBA welterweight championship, but Zab Judah, another Don King fighter, owns the undisputed WBA welterweight championship, as well as the WBA and IBF titles. You see, when a WBA beltholder unifies by defeating another titlist, the sanctioning body makes them a unified or undisputed or super champ, so that they may collect more sanctioning fees by holding extra title bouts. I was glad to see Gonzalez’s corner throw in the towel just as round eight was beginning, as he had taken too much punishment, and after a sixteen-year career, just didn’t have it anymore.
2. Okay, so Oliver McCall knocked out Przemyslaw Saleta. While that may mean something to Don King, who needs a Polish heavyweight to draw his countrymen as ticket buyers for when Andrew Golota is injured, mental or both, the main consequence to me is that I doubt that I will need to try and spell Przemyslaw again.
3. As the card rolled on into and through the Ricardo Mayorga-Michele Piccirillo fight, all I could think of was a slogan for us boxing writers who either plunked down the cash for the pay-per-view or slinked into a sports bar somewhere: We watch it so you don’t have to.
The beating that Mayorga took last year from Felix Trinidad didn’t change much of anything; his punches are still wide and wild, his demeanor is still cocky while he’s winning but whiny when he’s fouled, and he’s still one of the more interesting fighters to watch. While the circumstances behind his earning a shot at the WBC junior middleweight title are shady, his winning the belt guarantees that he remains in the picture for at least a little bit longer to entertain us. Should Fernando Vargas shake off the rest of his ring rust and dispatch Javier Castillejo next week, a match-up featuring the two mountains of machismo would be wonderful.
4. Don King titled this card “Global Glory: Battle for Pride and Country.” And the nationalistic promoter must have had his hands full with miniature flags to wave, with fighters from just the televised portion of the card representing Puerto Rico (Collazo, although he is a born-and-bred New Yorker), Mexico (Gonzalez), Poland (Saleta), Italy (Piccirillo) and the United States (for McCall, Rahman, Barrett and himself).
5. Bernard Hopkins may have a right to express his opinion that he won his bout with Jermain Taylor, but it still does not forgive a classless action that he reportedly took recently. According to a recent press release, Hopkins had asked The Ring Magazine to withhold their recognition of Jermain Taylor as their middleweight champion, but the publication refused. In retaliation, Hopkins reneged on a promise to The Ring to sign a pair of boxing gloves for a charity auction benefiting the American Cancer Society. His choice is selfish, childish and in the end shines a light on just what (or whom) is truly important to the future Hall-of-Famer.
6. As much as pundits (including myself) love to harp on Don King for his many eccentricities, it has never been possible to criticize him for his efforts to support troop morale in manners such as broadcasting his fights overseas. Another promotional company followed suit last week. Sycuan Ringside Promotions, an upstart out of California that has Julio Diaz, Israel Vazquez and Joan Guzman in its stable, held a show televised on ESPN’s Tuesday Night Fights that was held at the Marine Corps Base at California’s Camp Pendleton. Thousands of Marines received a free show featuring Eric “Butterbean” Esch and a main event that saw former lightweight titlist Julio Diaz defeat Russell Jones with his second straight first round knockout. A round of applause to Sycuan for doing an event that was more about doing something proper than about earning a profit.
7. As mentioned in the third entry, Fernando Vargas has a major fight on August 20 against Javier Castillejo, but one wonders if his mind has been elsewhere due to a variety of distractions. On the thirteenth, he attended a Major League Soccer game in Chicago, where he has been staying in preparation for the fight, which takes place in nearby Rosemont, Ill. The day before, he threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs ballgame. But the icing on the cake was something out of his control, a hotel fire on the eleventh that saw guests and staff evacuated from the Palmer House Hilton Hotel for a short period of time. Generally this is not the type of pre-fight activity that contributes to success, and the most noteworthy recent examples of distraction that had a negative impact involved Marco Antonio Barrera (fire in training camp, furor over brain surgery), Kassim Ouma (reported partying and illness) and Lennox Lewis (filming of Ocean’s Eleven cutting down on time to train and acclimate to the altitude of South Africa). All three would lose, respectively, to Manny Pacquiao, Roman Karmazin and Hasim Rahman.
8. I saw fantastic footage, by the way, of Antonio Tarver posing, like fighters do with opponents when announcing and publicizing a fight, next to an empty name card of Roy Jones Jr. after RJ failed to show up for the press conference. Quite amusing.
9. Clifford Etienne, who had seemingly turned his life around after a prison stint years ago, has apparently returned to his felonious ways. More details are being released with each day, but it seems that the Black Rhino allegedly robbed a check cashing place at gunpoint, attempted to carjack two cars with children inside and pointed his weapon at pursuing police officers. I remember seeing a documentary on prison boxing, and it featured the success story of former inmate Etienne, and I recall a conference call in January prior to Etienne’s TKO loss to Calvin Brock that extolled the education that all four pugilists on the card had received. And as such, it saddens me, makes me hope that Etienne can once again be rehabilitated in the corrections system, and if not, that he remain behind bars to protect both himself and others.
10. ESPN confirmed that it has picked up the boxing reality show The Contender for a second season, bringing life back to the Mark Burnett series that was canceled after one run on NBC. Assuming that enough of the audience from season one is retained, this is good news, not only for the minds and wallets backing the show, but also for the idea of boxing on television and the prospective futures of any contestants. Currently, the second season is set to premiere in April of next year.
