By Joe Harrison (photo by Tom Casino)
Ever since the retirement of Lennox Lewis, and with the recent retirement of Vitali Klitschko, boxing fans everywhere have been begging for a unification of the heavyweight titles, crowning one undisputed champion. On the bright side, it appears that during the next few months, the WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF heavyweight titles will all be on the line. Unfortunately, none of those champions will be fighting each other. Even more unfortunate, their opponents don’t appear to be worthy contenders.
When Hasim Rahman (41-5-1, 33 KO’s) makes his first defense of the WBC title against James Toney (69-4-2, 43 KO’s) on March 18th, he will be in the ring with a man whom has only had four fights as a heavyweight. Although he won all four of those bouts, Toney’s most dominant showing was against an aging Evander Holyfield. Plus, Toney was already given a shot at John Ruiz when he had the WBA belt last April. Although Toney won by decision, he also tested positive for a banned substance after the fight, making the match a no contest. His other two wins came by decision over Dominick Guinn and Rydell Booker, both of whom were not ranked as top contenders.
Amazingly, the match-up against Booker was a WBC eliminator, even though Booker's two previous bouts were eight-round fights. If these facts aren’t enough, the number one ranked boxer in the WBC today is Oleg Maskaev (32-5, 25 KO’s), not James Toney. However, the WBC still granted the title shot to James Toney, possibly because he is more popular. So regardless of who the winner is between Rahman and Toney, Maskaev will likely be in the picture before any of the other champs can bring up talks of unification.
Now that we have a 7-foot-tall champion in Nikolay Valuev (43-0, 31 KO’s), we’ve been looking to see some interesting match-ups. Maybe a brawl of the giants, pinning Valuev against someone like Wladimir Klitschko, or maybe even Jameel McCline. But of course, neither of those boxers deserves a shot at the WBA title. However, Valuev is expected to defend his belt in Germany on May 27th, and word is out that his opponent may be none other than Owen “What the Heck” Beck.
What the heck is right. Beck (25-2, 18 KO’s) has lost two of his last three fights, and isn’t even in the WBA’s top ten. After losing to Monte Barrett by TKO and Ray Austin by split decision, Beck is the last person on our minds to receive a shot at the WBA championship. Even Monte Barrett isn’t worthy of receiving a title-shot, especially after losing to Hasim Rahman last August, and holds losses against Joe Mesi, Wladimir Klitschko, and Lance Whitaker as well. Now that Joe Mesi is back, maybe he should get that title-shot against Valuev. Imagine that.
When Wladimir Klitschko (45-3, 40 KO’s) lost to Lamon Brewster for the WBO title in April of ‘04, many fans had lost hope in him. However, that would not be the end for Wladimir. After barely getting the win over Davarryl Williamson, and destroying Eliseo Castillo, Klitschko was given an opportunity to fight Samuel Peter in an IBF/WBO eliminator last September.
Peter, who had yet to defeat a big-time contender, was no more deserving of fighting in the eliminator than Klitschko. Since Klitschko defeated Peter, he will have a crack at Chris Byrd (39-2-1, 20 KO’s) for the IBF championship on April 22nd. The odds are in Klitschko’s favor, but even if he becomes the new IBF champion, how long will take before Klitschko is knocked out by another power puncher again?
As of recently, the news broke out that Lamon Brewster (33-2, 29 KO’s) may defend his WBO belt against Sergui Lyakhovich on April 1st. What happened here? It had been over a year since Lyakhovich (22-1, 14 KO’s) has stepped in the ring. Last time he fought, he had a big win over Dominick Guinn. Yet, Guinn was hardly a top contender.
Once an undefeated prospect with high hopes, Guinn was punished by Monte Barrett, then lost to Lyakhovich, and then moved onward to another loss at the hands of James Toney. So somehow, despite his mediocre resume, we’re being told that Lyakhovich is getting a shot at Brewster’s WBO title. Maybe a tune-up bout may have been a more reasonable idea for Lyakhovich, rather than attempting suicide by facing Brewster.
With all these repulsive match-ups coming up, and no unification bouts anywhere in sight, we can still be optimistic for the future. There is a chance of unification if Wladimir Klitschko defeats Chris Byrd and then goes for a rematch with Lamon Brewster, with the winner obtaining both the IBF and WBO titles. Valuev has expressed interest in facing Klitschko as well. So if Klitschko defeats Byrd, perhaps he and Valuev could meet in a unification of the IBF and WBA titles.
Of course there’s the possibilty of Toney being the next WBC champion, but not only would he have to think about Maskaev awaiting his title-shot, Toney only seems interested in luring Lennox Lewis out of retirement for a showdown. The bottom line is, if we ever have an undisputed heavyweight champion, it is not likely to happen this year, but maybe it could develop next year. That’s only if you’re optimistic.