By Don Colgan
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com
The long standing barometer for boxing’s health has long rested with the man on top of the heavyweight division. The World’s Heavyweight Champion has always held stature as the paramount figure in the world of sports. From the days of John L. Sullivan to the Lennox Lewis Era, when a Heavyweight Championship Bout loomed, it demanded world attention and dwarfed the dominant spectator sports, including football and baseball, until the moment of the opening bell.
Boxing draws nourishment from the Heavyweight championship of the world. John L could “Lick any man in the house”. The total domination of the Great Boilermaker Jim Jeffries terrorized the heavyweight class for six years and the search for a Great White Hope to eclipse Jack Johnson bore headlines year after year.
Dempsey made the transition from slacker to stardom during his seven year reign. America grew to love the humble Louis as he mirrored America’s fundamental decency during his reign before and during the searing years of World War II.
We loved the real Rocky and cheered lustily for Floyd the night he demolished Johansson and brought the cherished title back to the United States. Then the great Ali revitalized the heavyweight division and the sport of boxing, creating endless headlines as he accomplished miracle after miracle. Ali birthed opportunities for battler’s in all weight classes as America and the world paid attention the handsome and valiant Champion who changed both boxing and the world.
Even the churlish Larry Holmes made it clear that a great champion could be succeeded by another. The night he turned back Gerry Cooney the clocks stopped around the world as we all waited to see if the challenger was white hype or the real deal. As it turned out, Gerry was a bit of both. He battled the Easton Assassin and inflicted damage, yet the talent gap between Champion and Challenger widened as the bout turned towards the championship rounds and the titleholder prevailed.
Yet we all watched!
Tyson seemed destined to be yet another in an evolving succession of great heavyweight titleholders. We were all fooled by the savagery he inflicted upon a talent thin division that afforded not a Norton, Quarry or Bonavena to truly test him. When he slaughtered Michael Spinks in Atlantic City his invincibility seem assured for a decade. Then came the night in Tokyo when a good big man met a good little man and Mike couldn’t get past the Douglas jab.
Yet the heavyweight champion of the world, during this long discussed era beginning with Sullivan’s ascent in the 1880’s and persisting a full hundred years, was the undisputed and central authority in sports. I remember before every Clay/Ali defense the predictable “Clay’s fighting tonight” when I arrived at school. The tale of the tape that adorned the front page of the sports section before every title bout, from Bantamweight to Heavyweight.
The chatter. The Arthur Daley “Sports Of The Times” column that put every reader into both the champ and challenger’s dressing room and into a ringside side on fight night. The talk in the barber shop, the machine shop, the bus station, and the luncheonette. If a World Series game competed with a Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali title defense, it would clearly take a back seat and be grateful to share even a fraction of the spotlight.
Not today!
Boxing in 2007 has become a Kangaroo sport. Strong in the hindquarters, weak in the front. Since the abdication of Lewis, a worthy and dominant titleholder, the seemingly permanent fragmentation of the heavyweight championship has damaged the Sweet Science. With little doubt Wladimir Klitschko is clearly the best heavyweight in the world. But, a Frazier, Holmes or Lewis he most certainly is not. Yet he possesses the brawn and the punch to put measurable distance between him and the other partial titleholders.
Boxing has been yearning for a marketable white heavyweight with championship ability since Johansson stopped Patterson nearly a half century ago. The emergence of both Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko in the late 1990’s gave the possibility of a successor to Lennox Lewis. Vitali’s meritous performance against Lewis seemed a redux of Chuvalo, Quarry and Cooper. Courage and blood yet ultimately defeat.
First Vitali, and now Wladimir, have won championships where countless others have failed. Both have been formidable presences in the heavyweight division since the late 1990’s, Vitali was the more complete package, a dangerous puncher with a strong chin. Wladimir has been a top contender for a comparable time, despite suffering several shattering setbacks. He has been his brother’s keeper in the heavyweight division, earning the IBF & IBO heavyweight titles and remains a testimony to one of boxing’s oldest axioms, that heavyweights mature late.
It is imperative that the powers who govern the WBO, the WBA, the WBC and every alphabet agency that claims a portion of the heavyweight championship to permit this title to be unified once and for all. It is the only solution to energize boxing in all weight classes. Not only in the United States, throughout the world. A undisputed Heavyweight Champion, even one as difficult to market as Klitschko, will create instant awareness and restore the World Heavyweight Champion to his rightful position as the premier sports figure in the world.
Klitschko’s complexion is not at the center of this issue. It is coincidental that the most dominant white heavyweight since Rocky Marciano is the least recognized heavyweight champion in the perhaps the past century. Boxing is not in sound health, despite superb champions such as Mayweather and young Jermain Taylor. The old Greek adage says “The Fish rots from the head down”.
If the status quo remains over the next five years, this may be true of boxing.
