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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - When was the last time anyone really cared about heavyweights?
After enjoying decades of transcendent champions like Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis, the latest generation of boxing fans has only known the Eastern European wrath of mammoth Ukrainian brothers menacingly nicknamed Drs. “Ironfist” and “Steelhammer.”
That pair’s older sibling, Vitali Klitschko, retired as a two-time WBC champion after a 2012 stoppage of Manuel Charr became his 45th win in a 16-year career that included 41 knockouts and just two losses -- one due to a shoulder injury and the other to a ghastly eye cut.
The younger, Wladimir Klitschko, remains in the midst of a reign that’s seen him hold two of the division’s five significant championship belts -- the IBF and IBO -- since 2006, while picking up two of the others, the WBA and WBO, during a subsequent 17-defense run.
Just how dominant have they been, you ask?
Even in an era of splintered title claims, for the 22 months prior to Vitali’s last appearance, not a single heavyweight championship fight was won by a fighter not named Klitschko.
Additionally, at least one fighter named Klitschko has held at least one of the five shares of the heavyweight title for 139 of a possible 174 months since Vitali captured the WBO crown in June 1999.
To put it another way, that’s 11 1/2 of the last 14 1/2 years.
But if Bermane Stiverne has anything to say about it, the conversation is about to change. [Click Here To Read More]
After enjoying decades of transcendent champions like Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe and Lewis, the latest generation of boxing fans has only known the Eastern European wrath of mammoth Ukrainian brothers menacingly nicknamed Drs. “Ironfist” and “Steelhammer.”
That pair’s older sibling, Vitali Klitschko, retired as a two-time WBC champion after a 2012 stoppage of Manuel Charr became his 45th win in a 16-year career that included 41 knockouts and just two losses -- one due to a shoulder injury and the other to a ghastly eye cut.
The younger, Wladimir Klitschko, remains in the midst of a reign that’s seen him hold two of the division’s five significant championship belts -- the IBF and IBO -- since 2006, while picking up two of the others, the WBA and WBO, during a subsequent 17-defense run.
Just how dominant have they been, you ask?
Even in an era of splintered title claims, for the 22 months prior to Vitali’s last appearance, not a single heavyweight championship fight was won by a fighter not named Klitschko.
Additionally, at least one fighter named Klitschko has held at least one of the five shares of the heavyweight title for 139 of a possible 174 months since Vitali captured the WBO crown in June 1999.
To put it another way, that’s 11 1/2 of the last 14 1/2 years.
But if Bermane Stiverne has anything to say about it, the conversation is about to change. [Click Here To Read More]
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