Klitschko and Stitch – The Unlikely, Yet Perfect Pairing

By Thomas Gerbasi, photo by John Hornewer

After years and years as a cutman in both boxing and mixed martial arts, Jacob “Stitch” Duran figured that he had seen it all. But as he prepared his gear for a night’s work in the corner of his new fighter, heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko, he found out that in the punch for pay ranks, anything could happen.

Because now…in the locker room…Klitschko started bleeding.

“Stitch, Stitch, I need you,” said Klitschko, who had inadvertently hit himself in the nose while warming up, producing a stream of crimson just before he was about to step into the ring with DaVarryl Williamson in October of 2004.

“I’m in the dressing room, he’s warming up, and I didn’t see what happened, but the next thing I know, he has a nose bleed,” recalled Stitch with a smile. “I thought, ‘Is this how we’re gonna start off with this guy?’ My first work with him was in the dressing room and it’s never happened before.”

Needless to say, one of the best practitioners of this mysterious and essential fistic art got to work and stopped the bleeding before Klitschko made his walk into the Caesars Palace ring in Las Vegas, allowing his charge to do what he does best.

That bizarre happening is just one of the tales in Duran’s upcoming biography “From The Fields To The Garden, The Life of “Stitch” Duran”, which hits the streets later this month. Written with Zac Robinson, the book not only covers Duran’s upbringing and journey through the world of combat sports, but also takes you behind the scenes of some of both boxing and MMA’s most pivotal moments, while doing it in a fashion where you can almost hear Stitch’s voice as he brings you into the locker room and corners.

And after being brought in to work with Klitschko following the Ukrainian’s TKO loss to Lamon Brewster nearly six months earlier, Duran had to jump into action immediately (and not just in the locker room) when Klitschko was cut over his left eye in the opening round. No problem for Duran, who quickly closed the wound.

But in round four, Klitschko suffered a flash knockdown, and though he was winning the fight, he was far from his sharpest, and when a clash of heads opened up a nasty gash over Klitschko’s right eye, Duran had to work and think fast, and after doing some quick calculations, he realized a) his fighter was probably ahead should the fight go to the scorecards, and b) the cut was bad enough that even a momentary fix wouldn’t be enough to keep it from hampering Klitschko’s performance should the fight continue.

“I work on cuts like that all the time in the UFC, so I knew that I could control it,” he said. “But at that point, it was more than just controlling it, so I made the right move.”

That move was to inform ringside physician Dr. Margaret Goodman that the cut was too bad for Klitschko to continue. It was a gutsy decision, one made with trainer Emanuel Steward and Klitschko’s very protective brother Vitali inches away.

“He’s still the big brother,” said Duran of Vitali. “He was so concerned and focused on the cut and him getting dropped that both the brothers didn’t comprehend what I was doing. Everything was going so fast, and he’s not a cutman – he doesn’t look at things as a cutman, so he’s not even looking at who’s winning the fight – it’s more like ‘how’s my little brother?’”

Yet one of the key aspects of Duran’s work and philosophy is that he treats every fighter like his own child, and in this case, he wasn’t thinking about letting the fans in the arena or watching on television get another round or two – he was protecting his fighter.

Then the scorecards were read, and while he had an anxious moment or two when the words “split decision” were uttered, the victory did ultimately go to Klitschko.

That was win number one. Win number two was when Dr. Goodman later told him that the cut was so deep and close to a nerve that having the fight continue could have caused optical damage.

Since that night, no one else has served as a cutman in the Klitschko corner, and for good reason. Not only is Duran a master at what he does between rounds, but he has earned the respect of the brothers and their trainers outside the ring as well, for being a pro and for being a straight shooter. As Duran’s biography explains in depth, he was not shy about telling the current heavyweight champion that he was wrong in scapegoating former cutman Joe Souza for his 2004 loss to Brewster, and even when Klitschko was about to face Samuel Peter in 2005, Duran was not about to kill old friendships with members of the Peter team, and the fighter himself, just because they were going to be rivals on Saturday night.

“I’ve known Samuel, I’ve wrapped his hands, I’ve done pads for him, and we’re gym friends,” said Duran. “We were in the lobby and I’m talking to Samuel and (Cornelius) Boza-Edwards and Pops Anderson and Kenny Crooms, and they’re friends, guys from Las Vegas. And Wladimir and the group were walking by and he looks like at me. And in his eyes, it was like ‘what are you doing talking to the opponent?’ But I’m not gonna change my personality. These are my friends and I’m not gonna avoid them because we’re opponents. And with me, if you want the truth, I’m gonna give you the truth. I think that circled the bond around us, knowing that I’m there to protect him and always give him 150% and I think it’s built our friendship outside of just being his cutman.”

And while those in the fight game know of Duran’s character, Stitch is just as complimentary towards “Dr. Steelhammer”, and it’s something he picked up almost immediately.

“I just knew he was special in what he did, and talking to him and seeing his character, he was a pretty special guy,” said Duran, who will be back in the Klitschko corner Saturday night in Germany when Wladimir defends his IBF and WBO crowns in a rematch against Peter.

The overseas trips have become a ritual for Duran, who has worked corners in Europe, Canada, and Australia for the UFC, and Japan for the PRlDE organization. He has also made the trip to Germany eight times for Wladimir, and he always finds it interesting to see the reaction to the champion and the brothers’ particular rituals when fight week is in full swing.

“Everybody loves him, no doubt about it,” said Duran of Wladimir. “On fight week, Wladimir stays in his room. He has his own personal chef and he’ll cook for him, they’ll joke around, and he’ll do his thing. And the great thing about the Klitschkos is that there’s no entourage. Let’s say Wladimir’s fighting. Vitali’s like the Godfather. He’s down in the lobby and he handles all the business aspects while Wladimir is really focused on the fight.”

This attention to detail trickles down to actually being the ones who call Duran when they need his services for upcoming fights, a rarity in the fight game.

“When you book a fight, usually the manager calls you to make arrangements,” said Duran. “That doesn’t happen here. Wladimir and Vitali will call me and ask me to save the date of their fights for them. They’ll come to me personally and ask me, and they feel a hundred percent confident in what I’m bringing to the table, and so does Emanuel and so does (Vitali trainer) Fritz (Sdunek).”

There’s no arguing that on both ends of the Klitschko empire, things have become almost scientific in their precision – jab, jab, right hand, left hook – and say what you will, the fact remains that Vitali Klitschko is 8-0 since 2003 and Wladimir Klitschko is 12-0 since 2004 and the Williamson fight. Do they deliver the excitement of a prime Mike Tyson or a prime Evander Holyfield? Not here in the States, but as Duran points out, the Klitschkos may just be the last of a dying breed in the sport.

“You talk about what’s happened to the heavyweight division, and these guys are, on the discipline aspect, from a throwback era,” he said, “because everything is a hundred percent business for them. There’s no BS and they take things seriously from the training down to the business aspects of it. If there is a dying breed, these might be the last two guys that are representing the old school.”

“I get to see their final weeks of preparation and everything is systematic and regimented,” Duran continues. “Wladimir is more of the jokester and the happy-go-lucky guy and Vitali is more of the serious guy, but they’re both very serious in their preparation. And I just don’t see that in the heavyweights. Samuel Peter could have been a great fighter, but his biggest drawback is that he’s lazy. He controls his own training camp and these guys aren’t that way. In Wladimir’s camp, he always wants to extend himself, and Emanuel has to pull the reins back.”

On Saturday, unless Peter can land one of his thudding haymakers, it’s likely going to be another clinic for Wladimir Klitschko. And if Klitschko is on his game, Stitch Duran may not even be called into action. That’s fine with him, because it means his man isn’t getting hit or hurt, but as a self-described “insurance policy,” he does bring peace of mind to Klitschko, and to all his fighters, something that certainly comes across in his book, and in everyday life.

“Nobody gets to see the before, during, and after the event that I’ve seen, and nobody gets to get into the heart and soul of a fighter closer than me,” said Duran. “I’m the guy that’s preparing them for battle, the one that’s covering their back during battle, and the one that has the shoulder to lean on after the battle.”

And that may be the most important part of the job.