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BOXING’S GREAT WHITE “RUSSIAN” HOPE?

By C.J. SULLIVAN & DAVE HOLLANDER

HOLLANDER: It was the best press conference of the year. “I don’t consider myself a real champion” said Wladimir Klitschko, humbly, after he defended his IBF title at Madison Square Garden Nov. 11, sending an overmatched Calvin Brock to the canvas in the seventh round. Who would he fight next? Klitschko said he wasn’t in boxing just to make money. “I am interested to unify the titles … the heavyweight division needs a real champion.” Before Klitschko could finish his remarks, a heckler stood up in the front row. The man declared he’d had enough of this “bullshit.” It was Shannon Briggs, the WBO title holder. 

Briggs also showed up at the pre-fight press conference that week, demanding his shot at Klitschko. A press release from Don King’s office said that Briggs was throwing his own press luncheon, “[a]n American-style victory luncheon … No chicken Kiev will be served. No blini [sic] pancakes will be served.” At the luncheon, Brigg\s disclosed his “plans to end Eastern-bloc domination by winning back all three titles.”

What’s with all the weird-dated, national chauvinism? Is that the best Don King can come up with? I’m not buying it.
A 7-foot, Russian circus act named Nikolay Valuev holds the WBA title. He is three wins away from Rocky Marciano’s mark of 49 consecutive wins. I don’t know which is a bigger joke: that this missing link will likely pass a hallowed boxing record or that the WBC title holder, Oleg Maskaev, is from Kazakhstan? Maybe boxing needs Borat, not Don King.

Hollow white vs. black, Russian vs. American or us vs. them jingoism is not what the heavyweight division needs. What heavyweight boxing desperately needs to regain legitimacy and recapture the reptilian imagination of mainstream sports fans is title unification.

Klitschko was born in Kazakhstan, raised in the Ukraine and resides in Germany. Whatever his nationality, Klitschko’s leviathan torso is the best place for all four belts to enjoy permanent resident status. 

SULLIVAN: Don King is a genius and understands the primal core of boxing and America better than any other promoter.

In boxing it is all about race and nationality. It was always thus and shall remain that way. Who sells more tickets: Calvin Brock vs. Shannon Briggs or Briggs vs. “Mighty Whitey” Klitschko? The Russian against the Brownsville Cannon (Briggs) will sell out the Garden. The Brighton Beach crowd versus the boyz from Tyson’s old hood is not a fight I would like to be a security guard for at MSG.

Calvin Brock (or Brock-oli as Briggs called him) is a joke. Briggs is not. He is one tough man. A week ago he was losing to another of the Russian heavyweights, Sergei Liakhovich, when Briggs got his Brownsville on and knocked Liakhovich out of the ring to win the fight and the WBO title.

The Eastern Bloc fighters have reignited the heavyweight division. That is good, but Shannon Briggs will knock Klitschko out when they meet. It is Valuev, the 7-foot giant, and Maskaev that will pose a bigger problem to Briggs.
I hope Valuev breaks Marciano’s record of 49 straight wins. Marciano fought and won against mostly washed up black fighters and lame white men. He caught Joe Lewis as an aging, broke man. His record was one of timing and luck, not of skill. Valuev, Briggs and Klitschko would all beat “Little” Rocky Marciano senseless if they fought today.

The most pressing fight coming to the division will be Klitschko and Briggs. Klitschko is just not tough enough to handle a beast like Briggs. That is not true of the other two Eastern Bloc animals who look like they have been fed nails their whole lives. Comparatively, Brownsville, Brooklyn, looks like a bucolic suburb. Briggs will run into a buzz saw when they get their bloody mitts on him.

These are, finally, exciting times in boxing and it is all because the fighters are of different ethnicities. That is the reality of boxing. If you don’t like it, watch football.

HOLLANDER: Your shameless attempt to push every hot button—race, ethnicity, nationality—fails to elucidate anything about boxing or who will unify the heavyweight title. Nonetheless, I’ll briefly indulge your demagoguery.

Did you know Wladimir Klitschko gave $250,000 out of his proceeds from the Brock fight to UNESCO for poverty relief in Namibia? He made that decision after visiting the bereft African nation in August. Klitschko has done more for Africa than the African-American Briggs ever will. 

If boxing is “all about race and nationality” as you say, I guess no one told Klitschko. For him, boxing is all about boxing.

You make Brigg’s recent title victory over Laikhovich sound like a modern-day recreation of the famous George Bellows painting depicting Luis Firpo knocking Jack Dempsey ass-over-tea-kettle out of the ring. Well, it wasn’t. The Briggs-Laikhovich fight may not only go down in history as the most boring boxing match ever, but the most boring thing ever. When and if the 6-foot-5-inch” Ukrainian Klitschko gets a hold of Briggs, he will make the Brownsville “poet’s” dreadlocked puss look like a leaky plate of day-old borscht.

That’s boxing. You and I are engaged in a battle of wits. If this column were a boxing match, the referee would’ve stopped it long ago on account of your obvious inability to defend yourself.

If it’s verbal sparring you prefer, once again I recommend you reference the Klitschko-Brock post-fight press conference. After Brock spoke and before Klitschko, Laila Ali came to the microphone. Earlier, she mauled some poor woman on the undercard. Before she could speak, a deranged woman sitting among the press shouted less than flattering inquires toward Ali insisting that “The street wants to know.”

Ali pointed her finger and retorted, “Shut your muthafuckin’ ass up.” Garden security removed the unknown woman after letting her put on her shoes. Ali resumed her media address, giving a tongue lashing to HBO for refusing to televise women’s boxing. Then she shouted down another fighter in attendance who claimed Ali was ducking her.

Oh , C.J. how I wish you had been there. It was the 35th anniversary of Frazier-Ali (fight 1) at The Garden and “The Greatest” was there to see his little girl. He sat next to Dustin Hoffman while Matthew Modine snapped ringside photos and David Wright shared a popcorn with Paul Lo Duca. Dennis Hopper and Mickey Rourke drank beer, Lucy Liu chatted with Axl Rose, and Bert Sugar’s hat got in somebody’s way. Leroy Neiman and Bill Gallo compared sketches and, of course, Michael Buffer made sure all were ready to rumble. I could go on. Suffice to say, that whoever fights next for the heavyweight championship, please let it happen in Madison Square Garden.

SULLIVAN: Your social forays aside I will stick with boxing. Klitschko is a fine man. He has a doctorate, which is a first for heavyweight champs. That he gave money to a poor African country is stellar and shows he has feelings; however these feelings will be his undoing against Briggs. Wladimir isn’t even the toughest guy in his own family. I always thought his older brother, Vitali, was the better boxer. Wladimir is a good athlete and a fine boxer, but he lacks the killer gene—Briggs doesn’t.

Klitschko did not look all that impressive against a bum like Brock. He hesitates as he boxes, which will not serve him well against a mean bastard like Briggs.

The only reason people are even talking about boxing again is because the eastern Bloc fighters are taking over and America needs to fight back. It is all about nationality, Dave, even if you would like to give the world a Coke and live in harmony—ain’t gonna happen.
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