THERE WAS a time when there were three certainties in life, not two; death, taxes and a heavyweight prize fighter on the front cover of The Ring magazine. Since its inception in 1922, the bible of the sweet science has tracked the career of every big banger that ever pulled on gloves, from the Jacks, Johnson and Dempsey, through Rocky Marciano to Ali and Liston and Frazier and Foreman and beyond, they've all adorned the front on multiple occasions. Their pictures shifted copies, pure and
It's different now. "The worst of all time," says Stan Hoffman, the veteran manager who has handled the affairs of dozens of world champions over the years. "It's the pits. A shambles. Where are the good heavyweights? Beats me, kid."
The big men a
re no longer box office, no longer throwing their haymakers from the cover of the magazine of record. In the last four years The Ring has stuck a heavyweight on the front on just two occasions, a historically low number that is put in context when you know that in the great era of the early 1970s, Ali and his contemporaries featured on 56 covers out of 60 stretching across five riveting years. A similar ratio continued, pretty much, through the 1980s and 1990s.
The last time a heavyweight was on the cover it was Samuel Peter. Big Sam, the Nigerian Nightmare and holder of one of the main four alphabet (WBC) world titles. Peter is a journeyman, though. He's tough and brave and can floor anybody on his day but he's vulnerable, too. Any pretensions he had of becoming a fighter to remember went last October when Jameel McCline, a nobody supposedly trying to become a somebody, had Peter down on the canvas three times. McCline had never knocked anybody over in his life before. Peter got up to win but there was a lot of damage done to his reputation that night. He remains, probably, the second-best heavyweight in the world today behind Wladimir Klitschko.
Who can blame The Ring for sidelining the division? After all, the month of July brings three heavyweight bouts, two of them for world titles, another between two famous champions and yet none has created even the slightest stir in the game. Nobody seems to care anymore. There are reasons for this.
On Saturday, Uzbekistan's Ruslan Chagaev was due to defend his WBA title against Nikolai Valuev of Russia. Neither man has knocked anybody out in six fights, so we're talking average. Chagaev has a history of health problems, recurring issues with Hepatitis B and suggestions from a former manager that he's blind in one eye. The fight was called off when he tore an achilles. Valuev is 7ft tall. To date, that is one of his main calling cards. He's a big man. But is he any use? We'll have to wait to find out.
A week later, Klitschko of Ukraine versus America's Tony Thompson for Klitschko's IBF, IBO and WBO crowns. Klitschko has the titles but not the aura of greatness, not by a long way. "He's the best of a bad bunch," says Nigel Collins, editor of The Ring. "He's been fighting donkeys recently. Tony T is not bad but he doesn't have a big punch and boy I tell you, you're in trouble if you don't have a big punch in this game."
Finally, the farce fight to beat all farce fights. On July 16, James Toney, a month shy of his 40th birthday and with a recent record on the embarrassing side of awful, versus Hasim Rahman, a superstar for a few months back in 2001 when he knocked out Lennox Lewis to become world champ. Before the year was out Lewis had his horrible revenge with a fourth-round knockout thereby restoring the natural order. Rahman's been fighting bums lately; Zuri Lawrence, Cerrone Fox, Dicky Ryan, Taurus Sykes.
It's a pitiful state of affairs. In March of 2004, in an attempt to predict the next generation of top heavyweights, The Ring settled on three for a high-profile feature piece. The three stars they picked out were Audley Harrison, who has become a nonsense, Dominick Guinn, whose time has already gone having lost three of his last five fights, and Joe Mesi, whose career is shot because of injury. What's happened here? And is there anybody out there who can save the heavyweight division?
Don Majeski has been in the fight game since the 1960s when he sold programmes for fights outside Madison Square Garden. For 40 years he has been one of the shrewdest minds and most respected agents in the business. What does he say?
"Heavyweight boxing is in the worst state since the beginning of prize fighting, especially in America. I can't see a prospect coming through. I really can't. For the first time in my life I can't point to somebody and say, 'this kid could be great'. Sure, in eastern Europe they're producing heavyweights but I can't say if any of them are any good. In America, it's a complete disaster. Every sport here wants big guys and nobody wants to fight anymore. Kids are turning to baseball and football and hockey and taking millions and not getting hurt. Young men don't want to box. It's not part of our culture any more the way it was when we produced the great fighters of the past. Floyd Patterson won the Olympics, so did Ali and Frazier and Foreman and Leon Spinks. The Olympics was a conveyor belt. Now it's eastern Europeans and Cubans winning those titles and I'm not sure any of them are really up to it either."
Hoffman still manages Rahman and Toney but he's not going to kid us into thinking they are something worth worrying about these days. He says he has a boy called Nate James who has a chance but can't see much else out there. The Russian Aleksandr Povetkin, maybe. He won the superheavyweight gold at the last Olympics. The Cuban Odlanier Solis, perhaps. He won the heavyweight crown in Athens. As for the great American heavyweight? Unless his boy James comes through, it's all over. "Since the late 1980s we have had in this country the worst amateur programme for boxing ever. Riddled with politics. The people involved don't understand boxers and boxing and kids are turning away from the sport. The rest of the world's not much better. Sam Peter gets hit by the big guys and he goes down. Klitschko, I like. He's a nice boy. But he got there by beating up on guys who are not very good. God bless him, he's taken what the Lord gave him and he's been very successful. But he's only decent, at best."
Collins sees things differently. The lack of charisma and thrill is something we've been through before, many times, he says. "What's happening right now is the same thing that's happened repeatedly throughout history when the dominant heavyweight retires. In this case we're talking about Lennox Lewis. He retired as champ, he cleaned out the division, beat everybody until there was nobody left to beat.
"You can go all the way back. When Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney retired there was a lull and a long period of crappy heavyweights. Same thing after Joe Louis retired, same thing when Ali went. It's just a cycle that boxing goes through."
We have to look beyond the current crop, says Collins. The next great one? Impossible to say but he puts forward a name. "Over here there is a little bit of excitement about David Haye. He was an outstanding cruiserweight and was the legit world champion but you have to say that even at cruiserweight he was a bit chinny. He was down in a number of fights, knocked out once. In a lot of his winning fights he was knocked down.
"But he's more athletic and exciting than most of the heavyweights we have now. People think back to Evander Holyfield who was the cruiserweight champ and moved up and had great success but, of course, Holyfield had a great chin. David has to prove that he can take a punch at heavyweight and we don't know if his punching power will be diluted when he moves up. He's the only person right now who you could say is a ray of hope but there's even a big question mark with him."
In the meantime, you ready to rumble with Chagaev and Valuev, Klitschko and Thompson, Rahman and Toney? Pretty sad, really.
THE CHAMPIONS
WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO (Ukraine)World Titles: IBF/IBO/WBO
Defeated American Chris Byrd in 2000 for WBO title though lost it to Corrie Sanders in 2003. Beat Byrd again in 2006 for IBF title. Defeated Sultan Ibragimov in February 2008 to unify IBF and WBO titles.
SAMUEL PETER (Nigeria) World Title: WBC
Awarded title in 2007 when champion Oleg Maskaev withdrew from defence with back injury. Lost to Wladimir Klitschko by unanimous decision in a 2005 title fight.
RUSLAN CHAGAEV (Uzbekistan)World Title: WBA
Undefeated in 25 (one draw), Chagaev took WBA title from Nicolay Valuev on a unanimous decision in April 2007. Tore achilles training for July 5, 2008 defence.
The full article contains 1546 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
