By Mitch Abramson

Vinny Maddalone is not highly ranked, but he is hard-working, and every punch he threw against Terrell Nelson on Wednesday in Manhattan came with malicious intent.

When he wobbled Nelson with a left hook, the crowd shrieked, and when the bout was stopped at 45 seconds of the second round, a bit prematurely it seemed, with Maddalone leaning his 234 pounds on Nelson and firing away with punches, the room erupted with noise: boos, cheers, applause. No other fight on the card at the Roseland Ballroom elicited the same types of sound, and the reason was simple: they were heavyweights, a couple of local guys from the neighborhood, throwing caution to the win, and everyone likes to see the big boys rumble, even if top American heavyweights are in short supply.

(Maddalone just signed a contract to fight undefeated Denis Boytsov in Germany on Nov. 15.)

There used to be a time in this country’s history when heavyweights were glorified, even elevated to myth-like status, men like Jack Johnson and Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali and even Mike Tyson. They were all American fighters, and fans identified with them, where they came from, how they got to be champion; fans shared their victories and defeats as if linked by blood.

Today, the heavyweight division is no longer glorified; it’s no longer the place where one might find the baddest man on the planet. Americans don’t hold any of the major heavyweight titles, and the sport as a whole seems to have suffered as a result, says HBO analyst Larry Merchant.

Since Lennox Lewis was champion, the American heavyweight has almost vanished, he says.

“Given the fact that an American heavyweight was dominant in the 20 th century and some of them were mythologized as part of America from John L. Sullivan to Jack Johnson to Jack Dempsey to Joe Louis to Muhammad Ali- there is something missing in the American tradition and psyche,” Merchant observed. “And that’s a problem in boxing.”

So rather than a great American heavyweight, we get the bizarre match-up of a seven-foot oddity in WBC champ Nikolai Valuev facing Evander Holyfield, which BoxingScene.com’s Rick Reeno reported is on the verge of being finalized for Dec. 20 in Switzerland.

And as these types of match-ups become more prevalent, as Hasim Rahman lands a deal to fight Wladimir Klitschko, the heavyweight division becomes an afterthought, a revolving door of former champions fighting each other in a meaningless game of musical chairs.

“People always ask me where all the heavyweights are,” Merchant says, “and I tell them that there are hundreds of them out there. They’re all playing linebacker.”

And what of the Klitschko brothers, who were once lauded as the saviors of the division? Two brothers, both articulate, with concussive power, both good-looking with diverse interests. Why didn’t they become stars in America?

While globalization has worked in basketball and hockey and baseball, it has not for the most part in boxing. The Klitschkos, for whatever reason, never seemed to connect.

“There was a great curiosity about them because they were brothers, and certainly there was a moment when they might have had a chance to establish a strong position, but if you look it up, there are no European fighters who have ever become superstars in America,” Merchant said. “There’s not a heavyweight out there who would be considered as a Pay-Per-View attraction, and the fact that they’re not American is the reason. That’s just a plain statement of fact.”

If the Klitschkos were from Brooklyn instead of the Ukraine, Merchant maintains, the brothers would be more in demand.

“They’d be plenty popular,” Merchant said. “Whether they’d be as popular as Ali and Tyson was for a few minutes is questionable because they don’t have that kind of colorful personality and/or menacing personality or crowd-pleasing style, but they’d be much more popular in the U.S. There would have been endless magazine covers devoted to two brothers who were heavyweight champions.”

Now, if you had a Latino heavyweight from the U.S., Merchant posits, he would certainly merit some attention.

“Given that in the U.S. it’s primarily a Latino driven sport, if there was a heavyweight, there would be an awful lot of interest,” Merchant said.

Enter Chris Arreola, a boisterous Mexican-American who knocks out his opponents, laughs about it afterward and appears to have the type of fun-loving personality ideal for connecting with the mainstream public. Arreola (25-0, 22 knockouts) is a big man with a big punch and a big personality, and Merchant calls him the “Great American Hope,” at the moment.

“Arreola as a Mexican-American would certainly be a sensation in the ethnic group that is most passionate about boxing today,” Merchant said. “I’m not going to say that it’s going to revive boxing and make it what it once was and all that stuff, but I would say that Arreola or if someone like him can materialize as a real championship fighter it would get people’s attention.”

Arreola, who is set to face Travis Walker on Nov. 29, is the latest American heavyweight to garner headlines.

At one point, American fans clamored after Michael Grant, the 6-7 giant who was destroyed by Lewis in two rounds in 2000 and was never the same after.

“Everyone got excited about Michael Grant, and I think that was just people looking for an American heavyweight, for a guy who looked the role of a dominant heavyweight, of a guy who could be larger than life,” Merchant said.

Then, there was Joe Mesi, who was enormously popular until health issues and a career in politics convinced him to think twice before stepping back into the ring. He hasn’t fought since 2007.

“Having built a tremendous following in upstate New York if he had been able to follow through on that, he could have been that same kind of phenomenon,” Merchant said.

Once a promising heavyweight who was described as Buffalo’s “third professional franchise,” Mesi is running for state senator on a platform of slashing property taxes and creating jobs, and boxing doesn’t seem to be a professional option for him anymore. He won the Democratic primary for the seat on September 9, though it’s still hard to think that this is the guy who suffered subdural hematomas in a 2004 bout against Vassiliy Jirov.

And there will certainly be other young heavyweight hopefuls in the future.

“Someone else will come along,” Merchant says. “To me, it’s inevitable. I don’t know when or if Arreola is the guy or not, but someone will come along simply because they fell through the cracks in high school and they didn’t want to play a team game and someone took an interest in them. Some kid will eventually turn up.”

Dan Goossen, who promotes Arreola, also believes that the sudden decline in heavyweight talent is a trend that will soon change, and he compared the current malaise to a team like the Boston Celtics which was floundering before acquiring Kevin Garnett. All it takes is one superstar to change the current trajectory.

“I’m not into the whole theory that younger athletes are leaving boxing to play basketball or other sports,” he said. “These kinds of things go in cycles. Right now the attention seems to be on the lower weight classes, but I think it’s only a matter of time until the heavyweights come back into fashion.”

Mitch Abramson covers sports for the New York Daily News and boxing for BoxingScene.com. Questions or comments can be directed to: mitchaaaa@aol.com