Wladimir Klitschko, the giant Ukrainian who meets British heavyweight David Haye in a world title unification grudge match in Hamburg on July 2, made the astonishingly frank admission this week that he was ?not born to fight? and having ?a split personality? enables him to step between the ropes.
?I wasn?t born a fighter. I have had to get to know my other qualities, my fighting qualities. But I have become a fighter,? revealed the 6ft 7ins man mountain with a sculpted 19st physique, ramrod jab and hammer of a right cross which have accounted for 10 successive victims, all in world title defences, over the last six years.
?Vitali, my brother [also a world champion] was born a fighter. You have people that were just born that way. You can call it ?a talent?. I have had to learn about the qualities I have in me.?
It is this open vulnerability which makes Klitschko?s grudge fight with the younger, smaller and infinitely more brash London fighter Haye all the more compelling at Hamburg Football Club?s Imtech Arena, which will be shoehorned with 50,000 baying spectators. �
Such revelations from men who put their bodies on the line in prize fighting are gold dust. Klitschko believes that his necessity for separating the athlete from the man has turned him into a split personality.
?I?m two people,? explained Klitschko at the luxurious spa resort Stanglwirt, his remote training base in the Austrian Tyrol this week, where he spends every night for six weeks sleeping alone in a log cabin on the hillside after sparring.
?There is the man, and there is the fighter. I?m two people. I?m not a person in the ring. I?m like an actor getting into the role. It doesn?t matter what?s going to happen, I?m not going to lose. It?s an act that you play. It?s not Wladimir Klitschko in the ring. I need two weeks after the fight to get out of the role. I have to rediscover myself.?
?Wlad the fighter? has won 55 times against other heavyweights in the blue riband division, while Klitschko the urbane cosmopolite with homes in Hamburg and Los Angeles, a PhD in Sports Science, and polyglot fluency in German, English, Russian and Ukrainian, is adept at chess, and has charity foundations to which he has etched his name. Where the two worlds collide is in his ring sobriquet ? ?Dr Steelhammer?.
Klitschko has reigned as heavyweight champion since 2006 and has campaigned at this level for a decade. He has not lost in a championship bout since 2004, when he was stopped in the fifth round by nemesis Lamon Brewster. He later avenged the defeat. Klitschko has insisted Haye will become the 50th KO victim of his ring career. �
?In 2004, I was at the bottom of the sport and I was the loser of the two brothers. I lost two fights to Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster. On the front cover of Boxing News there was me with a funny face trying to get off the canvas with the title ?Broken Man?. I had a lot of critics back then. Even my brother said ?You have to retire?, but I never lost trust in myself. I made certain changes, and here I am today.?
?This is my payback and I?m not done yet. I still have the taste in my mouth of 2004 and it gives me great motivation to prepare thoroughly and to be better than I thought I could be. Muhammad Ali said ?Eat your words? after he beat Sonny Liston for the first time, and I?m the same.?
Klitschko believes that he discovered another side to himself as a teenager inside ?a brutal boarding school regime? at a Soviet sports academy just outside Kiev. It was only after graduation that Klitschko realised that it had been good for him.
There was a veiled message in this for Haye, associated more with having the London street fighter about him. ?I was 14 and I went away from home and fought my way through this Soviet sports school training system. Trust me, it was so tough and hard. Some of my room mates were broken physically and psychologically because they were treated by the coaches in such a brutal way. A really brutal way. In this system, either you were going to survive and you were going to make it, or you were done in. There were guys there who were a lot more talented than me. But some of them were broken by the system. If you made it through to the other side, you were made of steel.?
?These were my formative years in sport. We were teenagers, we had no parents around, and a pecking order developed. We were from Kazakhstan, Moldova, Kurgistan, Uzbekistan, from all over the Soviet Republics.?
?We were friends and enemies at the same time, because the rules were tough. The kids were brutal, there were no limits.?
?I believe in truth. So if you are in the right, if you have the truth on your side, it gives you the energy to get through hard times, and difficulties. What I was really surprised about is how many people over there in Britain have been more supportive of me than David Haye. It?s shocking actually. But maybe it is just about sport.?
?Sport is not about nationality. It?s about personality. Look at Manny Pacquiao. He is not American but he creates a lot of excitement in the United States. I wouldn?t put this fight as a competition between two countries. Sport has one language and the name of that language is ?performance?. If you perform well people will accept you, it doesn?t matter where you come from.?
Haye?s stunt in wearing a t-shirt depicting the decapitated Klitschko brothers at a press conference in Gelsenkirchen two years ago still irks the giant. ?My parents taught me one thing ? you can hit much harder with words, and it goes deeper too. You can achieve much more with words than fists. So I?m only using my fists in the ring. Outside of the ring, I forget the qualities I have in there?I am a different man. But when I meet David Haye, rest sure, because I will be going in there, and giving 100 per cent of myself.?
Wladimir Klitschko, The Boxer
Ring name: Dr Steelhammer Record: 55 wins (49 knockouts) 3 defeats 18 world title fights. Won 16, lost 2. IBF, WBO and IBO World Heavyweight Champion Olympic gold medallist, superheavyweight, Atlanta 1996.
Wladimir Klitschko, The Man
Son of Volodymyr Rodionovych a Soviet Air Force Colonel, and Nadezhda Ulyanovna, a teacher. PhD in Sports Science, University of Kiev Speaks four languages ? Russian, Ukrainian, English and German Accomplished chess player, golfer who plays off 18, and kite-surfer A declared humanitarian, he is a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy and works for UNESCO
Haye v Klitschko is exclusively live on Sky Sports Box Office HD & 3D on Saturday 2 July. Don?t Wait, Book Now, go to: sky.com/orderboxoffice
