By Brent Matteo Alderson
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com

You knew it.  We all knew it.  All the signals are pointing to former champion Vitali Klitschko coming out of retirement to challenge Oleg Maskaev for the WBC heavyweight title in June.  It had to happen. Oleg is probably the most vulnerable fighter to hold the WBC title since Frank Bruno won it when he hung on for dear life in the closing moments of his fight with Oliver McCall in the summer of 95. 

Maskaev’s title is on borrowed time and like everybody else, promoter Dennis Rappaport and the rest of his team knows it.  That’s why they scheduled the December 06 title defense with unknown Peter Okhello in Russia, so they could milk the title for an extra pay-day before they had to face the winner of the James Toney-Samuel Peter eliminators.  And they lucked out with that one too. 

The first one was controversial and truth be told if Samuel would have showed up in shape at his optimum weight, he probably would have won the first fight with Toney convincingly and in all likelihood would have won the title by now.

But, he didn’t and the controversial nature of the decision and a little persuasion from promoters Don King and Dan Goossen influenced the WBC to mandate a second eliminator between the two, which gave Oleg some time to sneak in a gimme defense and induce Vitali Klitschko out of retirement. 

The question pertaining to who actually has the right to challenge Maskaev for the title is far from settled in the minds of the boxing public and the ongoing debate is quite a legal paradox.

The WBC sanctioned the Toney-Peter match as a title eliminator for the organization’s number one ranking in 2006. Pruir but before that, upon the announcement of his retirement, the WBC had named Vitali their Champion Emeritus and declared that if he ever decided to come back that he would automatically be made the number one challenger. 

In a way, having the status of Champion Emeritus is almost like being named the WBC interim champ for life since there wasn’t a specified expiration on the title.  Even though Peter had to fight two eliminators for the mandatory position, Vitali Klitschko has still leap-frogged ahead him to a title shot.

Samuel Peter and company shouldn’t worry because a very similiar scenario took place several years ago with Lennox Lewis.  After being upset by Oliver McCall, Lewis fought and beat an out of shape Lionel Butler in a WBC title eliminator in the spring of 1995 that made Lewis the mandatory challenger.  The problem was that in 1994, the WBC had voted to make Mike Tyson their number one contender upon his return to the ring since he’d been the number one challenger before his three-year stint in prison.

Even though Lewis had earned his number one ranking,  Mike Tyson immediately took over the number one spot after he beat Peter McNeeley, and later fought Frank Bruno for the title in March of 1996 in a very similar situation.
 
Now here is where the good news comes in for Samuel Peter.  After defeating Bruno, Tyson tried to forgo his mandatory with Lewis and signed to fight WBA champion Bruce Seldon in a unification fight, but Lewis’ brain-trust took the matter to a New Jersey court room (Where else do the Duvas do their legal business?) and Judge Amos Saunders ruled that as WBC champion Tyson couldn’t fight anybody else except Lewis. 

In the end, Tyson paid Lewis a four million-dollar step aside fee and then immediately vacated the WBC title after he won the WBA title on the night that Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas. 

The following February, Lewis recaptured the vacant WBC title by beating Oliver McCall in the now infamous crying fight.  You see, these guys can pay Samuel Peter a step a side fee of $2.5 million, and the winner of Maskaev-Klitschko can even vacate the title as soon as the fight is over, but they can’t stop Samuel from receiving his shot at the WBC title before the end of the year.

Peter is going to have to wait an extra six months, but he will eventually receive his opportunity to fight for the title because the legal precedent has been set and he won’t have any problem enforcing his right to a title shot in court after the Slavic civil war concludes between Oleg and Vitali

Allowing Peter to receive his shot at the title is in the best interest of the WBC, unless the sanctioning body wants another Rocchigiani case on their hands.

Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004. Alderson's published work has appeared in publications such as Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2006, and Latin Boxing Magazine. Alderson has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?”  Please e-mail any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com