By Bill Calogero
Photo © Ed Mulholland/Fightwireimages.com
Wladimir Klitschko looked impressive stopping Calvin Brock with a 7th round knock out Saturday, broadcast live on HBO from Madison Square Garden. He retained his WBC Heavyweight Title, which currently represents one-fourth of the Heavyweight picture, and in my opinion, can save the Heavyweight Division if he does the right thing.
The “Right Thing” would be to call Shannon Briggs’ bluff (that he too wants to unify the title) and fight him for his next title defense. By fighting Briggs now, Klitschko would be halfway to restoring a Unified World Heavyweight Champion again. Make no mistake; Klitschko would beat Briggs. I know Wladimir’s chin is suspect, and Briggs proved to still have power, but I think that he would be able to avoid a Briggs assault, thus sending Shannon into his “gasping for air” mode, which would eventually be his demise.
Klitschko looked like his skills are finally being fine-tuned in his win over Brock. His jab was stiff, accurate and most importantly, powerful. He also showed some much improved movement, which I think may be the biggest improvement in his arsenal. He has always had the punching power and now that his jab has been refined and he is beginning to move in a non-awkward manner, I think he has successfully distanced himself from the rest of the division.
After this upcoming weekend’s fight in Germany between John Ruiz and Ruslan Chagaev, the winner (whom I believe will be Chagaev) is scheduled to fight the WBA Champion, Nicolay Valuev. The winner of that fight (which should be Chagaev again) should fight the winner of the Klitschko vs. Briggs match (which should be Klitschko). So since I am basically predicting the future, I will say that we should be seeing Chagaev fight Klitschko for seventy-five percent of the Heavyweight picture, WBA, WBO and IBF. This should leave us with Oleg Maskaev’s WBC belt.
Oleg will have to fight sooner or later and since we all know that he came back and has been hand-held throughout his comeback, I would think there could be enough PPV money available to coax Maskaev and his team into the ring. When all the smoke clears, we may have an Undisputed Heavyweight Champion once again.
The truth is, when I say Klitschko can “save the heavyweight division” and because I say he has a very good chance of becoming the Undisputed Champion that does NOT mean I think he will hold that distinct title forever.
I do, however, feel that it would clean up all of those so-called contenders and should pave the way for some of the young up and coming true prospects to get ranked. Once that happens, I think the integrity of the Heavyweight Division will come back.
There are a lot of kids out there that are good and should be more popular and well known than they are. Because the division is so messed up, we have been force fed RECYCLED Heavyweight contenders.
How many loses does it take to finally NOT be ranked in the top-ten? Aside from his upset win over Lewis, what has Hasim Rahman done to deserve to be ranked in the top-ten of all of the sanctioning bodies? How does Oliver McCall get ranked at number five in the WBC? How does James Toney stay ranked when all he does is graze on buffet tables? I just don’t get it. Don’t forget Holyfield, McCline, Donald, and Williamson. True, they WERE all once top-ten fighters, but they shouldn’t be now.
No wonder why Lennox Lewis is constantly being tempted into a comeback. I really didn’t care for him when he WAS the Champ, but honestly, I can see why it may happen. I give him all the credit in the world for staying retired, something most athletes can’t seem to do until they are made fools of.
We need new blood in the Heavyweight Division. I think we may have it hiding there right now. What needs to be done is these kids have to fight! It goes back to what I always say, “Everybody Wants To Fight, But No One Wants To Fight Anybody.”
Lets get these up and coming kids to fight. I want to see Tony Thompson, Matt Skelton, and Alexander Dimitrenko, get in there with quality opponents. I want to see the young kids coming up like Chris Arreola, Roman Greenberg, Jason Estrada and Denis Boytsov fight each other. I want to see pretenders like JD Chapman, Damian Wills, Albert Sosnowski and Travis Walker get exposed by actually fighting someone that fights back.
Wladimir Klitschko may have done more then stop Calvin Brock in the 7th round last Saturday. If the FAN demands it, we may see it happen soon. But as long as the FAN pays for the PPV bouts, and keeps the greed factor alive with the powers that be, we will continue to get what we have been getting.
After all, professional boxing is a business and in business in order to be successful, you have to give the people what THEY want. Sooner or later people must demand quality bouts for their hard earned cash. I just hope it is sooner than later. I am not as young as I used to be!
