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Vitali makes heavyweights vital again

September 28, 2009 10:23 AM | Posted by   Chris Iorfida  

The heavyweight division boasts its first dominant champion since Lennox Lewis, and as many expected, it is Vitali Klitschko.

But it didn't exactly happen the way everyone thought.

After Klitschko lost a war with Lewis due to cuts in 2003, he was deemed the heir apparent.

He did go on to win a title, but wasn't overly impressive in wins over Corrie Sanders and Danny Williams. The six-foot-eight Klitschko then broke down with a series of injuries, retiring.

Well, the layoff sure did him well health-wise. Since returning to the ring late last year, he's absolutely bludgeoned Samuel Peter, Juan Carlos Gomez and, on Saturday in Los Angeles, previously unbeaten Chris Arreola.

At most, Klitschko has lost three of 27 rounds in the three stoppage wins, and that's being charitable.

About the only criticism you could make of the performances was that if he sat down on his punches a little more instead of throwing off his back foot, he could have scored a spectacular knockout in there as opposed to three prolonged beatdowns.

Vitali is the real deal

But all in all, the guy has been very impressive. So if you hear some blowhard popping off about how heavyweight boxing sucks these days and UFC is where it's at, ask him is he's seen any of Vitali's last three fights.

If the answer is no, dismiss him without prejudice.

Because the fact of the matter is, you probably have to go back to Mike Tyson 20 years ago to think of a heavyweight boxing champion who seems as unbeatable as Vitali does at this very moment.

Sure, Lewis was a better overall fighter than Klitschko, but there was always a healthy dollop of vulnerability. We saw early on that his chin could be reached, and that threat never really left, even against someone like Shannon Briggs. The Canadian also compounded matters by not always showing up in top-notch shape.

Not so with Vitali. He's a chiselled figure, with a remarkable weight deviation of just seven pounds over the past decade, and he's never been knocked down.

Having a glance at the division's top fighters, it is exceedingly hard to see him losing in the next couple years, even though he's 38, an age where historically many big men have faded. Until he loses or retires again, you have to consider him the true heavyweight champion.

Yes, younger brother Wladimir is also a heavyweight titleholder with several defences under his belt, but he's been knocked out twice and doesn't have the "It" factor Vitali does. Wladimir has scored some great KOs, but too often his game plan is mechanical.

Heavyweight division hitting stride

People like to dump on the heavyweight division, and often with good reason, but Vitali's resurgence doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of quality opponents.

Most boxing observers would put Peter, Gomez and Arreola as a group ahead of Williams, Sanders and Kirk Johnson, his three opponents before his retirement in 2004.

In other words, while the division ain't exactly resembling the golden eras of the '70s, or even mid-90s, it's better than it was five years ago.

And people also need to know about the long view. Many of the dozen years Joe Louis held the crown were desultory and the division in the mid-to-late '50s was lacking.

Long before MMA, the increase in football and basketball salaries or whatever other theory currently fashionable to explain heavyweight boxing's current challenges, the division has always had its peaks and valleys.

Now what heavyweight boxing needs is for David Haye to topple seven-foot giant Nikolai Valuev in November.

Haye is brash, telegenic, armed with a great right hand and a dubious chin. In a word, exciting.

With Vitali, Wladimir, Haye, capable challengers Alexander Povetkin, Eddie Chambers, Alexander Dimitrenko and Kevin Johnson, there should be enough compelling bouts for a couple of years, by which time who knows who else has emerged.

Provided he's not psychologically destroyed by Saturday's eating or eats himself out of contention, Arreola should be in that group as well. He didn't shame himself against the too-big Klitschko, and should make for good matchups with any number of fighters.

To borrow the nickname of another recent great, Vitali is the real deal.

Quick jabs

Jean Pascal of Laval, Que., won fairly convincingly over Italian warhorse Silvio Branco on Friday night. Up next could be a rematch of the barnburner he fought with Montreal's Adrian Diaconu earlier this year.

Steve Molitor of Mississauga, Ont., got some good news without even fighting. Takalani Ndlovu won an International Boxing Federation super bantamweight title eliminator on Friday over hard-punching Kiko Martinez.

It likely means that the path for Molitor to get back to a title shot involves Ndlovu, who the Canadian absolutely bewildered and then battered a couple years back.

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