By Brent Matteo Alderson

The boxing establishment always tries to anoint the next great heavyweight because regardless of what people say about the lower weight classes providing better fights the Heavyweight Champion has always been the sport’s most influential ambassador except in rare cases when special champions like Oscar De La Hoya, Ray Robinson, and Ray Leonard have carried the sport. 

Thus as the need for a popular and dominate heavyweight champion foments speculation, unworthy men are bestowed with the title of the possible next great heavyweight and this occurs regularly especially when the division is weak and destitute because people are naturally inclined to think, “Someone’s going to come along, they always do.” 

Michael Grant is the perfect example of this tendency to prematurely label a heavyweight a “possible Heavyweight Great.”  Michael was huge at 6’7 and 255 pounds of rock solid muscle and beat a number of quality heavyweights such as Andrew Golota, Lou Savarese, and a fresh Obed Sullivan.  Almost everyone was on the Michael Grant bandwagon. Larry Merchant even thought that his athleticism and physical gifts were vast enough to compensate for his glaring lack of experience.  I was never on the Grant bandwagon because I always view big guys that start boxing in their twenties as flunkies.  They couldn’t’ make it in other professional sports so they jump into boxing thinking that they can make waves and this is how it went for Michael Grant.
 
He had tried out for the Kansas City Royals and played basketball in college, but when his prospects for turning pro in those sports seemed bleak he got into boxing.  And he was pretty successful and maybe could have been a great fighter if he had gotten involved in the sport at an earlier age, but he didn’t and when Lennox Lewis struck him down in two brutal rounds in his bid for the heavyweight championship of the world I was out of my seat yelling, “Go back to the other sports, this is the fight game, it’s not for other sports’ flunkies!” 

So it was, the boxing establishment had anointed another fighter as the next great heavyweight and as usual another one bit the dust.  So when 1996 Super Heavyweight Gold Medalist Wladimir Klitscko turned professional and rung up a record of 35-1 and avenged his brother’s defeat to Chris Byrd with a dominating unanimous decision victory, boxing people got excited, but were still hesitant to label Wladimir the next great heavyweight since they had to eat crow with their predictions on Michael Grant less than two years earlier. 

We still talked about how Wladimir had it all.  Youth, a lengthy amateur career, size, fluid combinations as well as speed that was more than decent for a heavyweight.  Still we waited until he passed some more obstacles and then he proceeded to pass them.  

First it was Monte Barrett who he stopped in the summer of 2000 on HBO.  Then all the pundits thought, “Throw him in with Ray Mercer, Ray’s been active and he’s always been able to test any heavyweight he’s been in there with.”  So in June of 2002, Wladimir passed the Mercer test with flying colors, knocking out the rock hardened veteran for the first time in his career and dominating him as if he were a journeyman from one of Cedric Kushner’s Heavyweight Explosion cards.  Still some people thought that Mercer was old, he was in his forties and hadn’t fought a top ten heavyweight in over five years.  We still held out and wanted to wait and see. 

At the time Jameel McCline was making some big waves in the division, he was also huge at 6’6 and 260 pounds and even though he had worked as a sparring partner early in his careers and was deemed as “talent less,” by Don Turner, Jameel had turned his career around.  He knocked out Michael Grant in one round in Grant’s first comeback fight after the devastating loss to Lewis, outboxed Lance Whitaker who was coming off of a two round demolition of the then streaking Oleg Maskaev, and then dominated Shannon Briggs en route to an easy unanimous decision. 

Jameel’s career was on the up and up and everybody knew it.  During the course of a fifteenth month period he had decisively beaten three of the world’s top 15 heavyweights.  So we thought that Jameel would be a test for the young Klitschko and HBO put the fight on the under card of Mayweather-Castillo II and Wladimir impressed.  He easily out-boxed McCline who put on a lackadaisical performance from which his career has never recovered.  That night Jameel didn’t pressure Klitschko or even throw that many punches.  He just quit after the tenth round, content to collect his check without putting his heart out on the line in order to test Klitschko’s. 

This is when I jumped on the Klitschko band wagon.  He had beaten two of the world’s top six heavyweights with his wins over Byrd and McCline and hadn’t exhibited any weaknesses during those bouts.  Yes he had lost to Ross Purity by knock out in his 25th professional fight when he twenty-two years old and so overcome by exhaustion that he couldn’t come out for the eleventh, but a lot of boxing people blamed that loss on a lack of experience as did Wladimir himself, “I was 22 years old when I fought Ross.  It was a good experience for me.  I was arrogant.  I didn’t have the concentration for that fight that I needed and I paid for it.  I had other things in my head going into that fight and I learned what it means to be a professional.”  So we threw out that early loss and anointed Wladimir as the future Heavyweight Champion of the world, as the rightful heir to Lennox Lewis.

Then our hopes were destroyed by Corrie Sanders who used his southpaw left hand and his sneaky speed to easily knock out Wladimir in two rounds.  The boxing world was shocked.  Another heavyweight great had beaten the dust before he even got close to becoming great.  There were still some boxing people who felt that Sanders may have gotten lucky and everybody knows that the underlining truth in boxing is that anybody can get knocked out by anybody at any point in time.

So Wladimir made a comeback and easily dispatched Fabio Moli and Dannel Nicholson, which set up a bout between him and Lamon Brewster for the WBO title, which had been vacated by Corrie Sanders so he could fight Vitali Klitschko for the WBC title that had been vacated by Lennox Lewis.  And for fours rounds Wladimir put it on Brewster, throwing everything and the kitchen table at him, but Brewster weathered the storm and afterward Wlad was spent and was stopped in the fifth.  Really his knockout loss to Brewster had to do more with him not pacing himself and punching himself out than it did with Brewster knocking him out with legitimate punches.

Still Brewster won the fight by knockout and the WBO title, and Klitschko cried about the loss, even insinuating that he had been drugged by Don King, even though it was obvious to most observers that he had punched himself out.

After the loss to Brewster, Wladimir fought DaVarryl Williamson in October of 2004.  The fight was ugly.  There was a lot of wrestling and both fighters were tentative.  Then in the fourth Williamson knocked Wladimir down with a right, but the fight was stopped after the fifth due to a cut that Klitschko had suffered from a clash of heads.  The bout went to the cards and Waldimir won it by split-decision.  Even though he was knocked down, he had won most of the rounds, but still this is when I jumped off of the Wladimir Klitschko bandwagon.  Come on, he struggled with Williamson, a guy who had been knocked out in one round by Joe Mesi and Wladimir got kind of lucky with his five round split decision win, considering he was the only fighter to hit the canvas in such a short bout. 

Since the fight with Williamson, Wlad has shown improvement and has exhibited mental toughness, improved stamina, and a sturdier chin.  He survived three knockdowns in his fight with Samuel Peter and proved he has the ability to go the distance in a long tough fight.  Plus getting knocked down by Peter doesn’t necessarily mean you have a weak chin, the Nigerian strong man is probably the hardest hitter in the division and even had James Toney rocking and reeling a couple of times. 

Contrary to most scribes, I didn’t think the Byrd victory was that impressive.  True Byrd hadn’t been knocked out since Ike Ibeabuchi did it in 99, but Chris is past his prime and had been struggling in most of his recent fights, most notably against McCline, Oquendo, and Golota.  Plus Byrd’s strengths, which are speed and defense didn’t exasperate Wlad’s inadequacies, which are a mediocre chin and questionable stamina. 

That’s why I think this fight with Calvin Brock is so important.  Klitschko has worked his way back to the top and now he’s going to fight a fairly young, undefeated heavyweight who is experienced and has a decent punch.  Calvin is a little on the small side, but he’s big enough and if you witnessed his knock out of Zuri Lawrence then you know he hits hard enough and Calvin knows that this is his shot at glory.  Plus if he wins this fight, his children will never have to work a day in their lives because Calvin will be the only American titlist and huge fights will loom on the horizon.      

I know Emanuel Steward loves Wladimir and has high hopes for him, but Manny always falls in love with offensive minded fighters, just look at Tommy Hearns and Lennox Lewis, but you just have to look at Wladimir’s history.  He was stopped by Ross Purity, Lamon Brewster, and Corrie Sanders, knocked down by Williamson, and knocked down three more times by Samuel Peter.  The only thing consistent about Klitchko’s career is his inconsistent success at the top level and I think Brock’s inside game along with his sturdy chin will take him to victory and spell the end for another heavyweight great that never was.     

Notes:

After Roberto Duran upset Iran Barkley for the Middleweight title and set up a lucrative rubber match with Sugar Ray Leonard which before hand was seen as improbable, Mike Trainer, Sugar Ray Leonard’s manager/lawyer commented, “You gotta love the little sh*t!”

Another time, Mike commented how he had fought hard in negotiations to get the first Leonard-Duran fight in Montreal away from Duran’s Hispanic fan-base and how Roberto easily thwarted any advantages that Trainer had gained in negotiations when Roberto got off the plane in Montreal and declared in French, “I love Canada!”     

Lennox Lewis is a heavyweight great, just look at his 2000, it was probably the most successful run that any heavyweight champ has had during the course of a year period since Mike Tyson’s prime in 88.  Lewis beat Grant 31-0, Botha 40-2-1, and David Tua 37-1.  Holyfield could always win the big one, but he never successfully defended his title with regularity against top contenders.  In fact the second fight with Michael Moorer was probably Evander’s most impressive defense and that was an alphabet title unification.

I had a very informative old timer write me about how Rocky Marciano would have stopped Muhammad Ali and how the Greatest would have wilted from the Rock’s body shots.  All I can say is that the Rock has about as much of a chance of beating Ali as Vivian Harris has of beating Winky Wright.

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