When Wladimir recently compared Povetkin?s style to that of Mike Tyson, it was hard to hear him over the stifled guffaws of the pressmen retyping it?
?The mission I set out on in the beginning,? said Lennox Lewis, the last true King of the heavyweight division, ?to become heavyweight champion of the world, undisputed, lineal champion?you could say that mission is complete.?
After Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin make war this weekend in Moscow, Russia, another heavyweight will be able to say these same words for the first time since The Lion?s 2003 retirement and a new lineage will be established. The fate of boxing?s greatest prize will for the first time be decided in the former Soviet Union, the monolithic state that birthed both men, although the partisan Moscow crowd will be rooting firmly for Povetkin, ?The Russian Vityaz.? The lineal title is a beltless honor, but it is one that can be traced all the way back to the first great gloved champion, John L. Sullivan, and through men such as Jack Johnson, Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. In an era of belted wonders and ?title? shots bought with cold cash rather blood and sweat it is the surest recognition of quality in a champion.
At times, it seemed we would never reach this point. After the retirement of Lewis the heavyweight division was left in something of a muddle, as is almost always the case upon the withdrawal of a truly dominant King. The availability of so many useless baubles and bangles, each bringing golden-calf status to the fighter wielding it compounds this problem in the modern era, and, as the man once said, on horror?s head, horrors accumulate. Into this confounding arena of doubt and uncertainty stepped not one, but two men, a dual-headed Ukrainian dragon that swept the division before with claws of iron and clay. The iron, Vitali Klitschko, steel-jawed and dogged, the clay, Wladimir Klitschko, vulnerable but brilliant, accurate and thunderous; the problem?they could not meet in the ring. Far and away the best of the post-Lewis generation, no new lineage could begin because this dual-headed dragon could hardly be matched with itself. So, we watched as they took it in turns to win and lose and win the affection and respect of the wider boxing public, and then took it in turns to batter one overmatched contender after another. It was Wladimir who emerged as the division?s boss, if not its King, as Vitali?s body and level of opposition failed to match that of his younger, more talented brother.
An incoherent attempt by Ring Magazine to award Wladimir the lineal title after he battered the game but fading #3 contender, Ruslan Chagaev, failed, for the most part, to stick, but patience has rewarded both he, and us, the wider public. It is a tortured process by which Wladimir will perhaps take the step from boss to King but a fair one. The Transnational Boxing Board removed Vitali Klitschko from the #2 spot in the heavyweight rankings at the beginning of December, in keeping with rules regarding inactivity. His replacement, David Haye, was similarly eliminated when injury saw his contest with contender Tyson Fury postponed until February of next year, resulting in his, too, standing in breach of that rule. Alexander Povetkin became the world?s #2 heavyweight. One of boxing?s better traditions: only a meeting between the two highest ranked fighters in a given division can crown a new King. This is what occurs in the heavyweight division this October 5th.
Whilst Povetkin?s approach to the highest peak occurred in less than auspicious circumstances, via the indifferent floundering of his nearest competitors for the #2 berth, he is nevertheless regarded by many as the best fighter in the world not named ?Klitschko.? What are his chances, then, against the younger brother?
Povetkin arrived in earnest in 2011 after outclassing Ruslan Chagaev over twelve tough rounds on Klitschko turf in Germany. Then he stalled. A non-performance versus the limited all-action cruiserweight Marco Huck on that same turf saw him firmly beaten on my card but given the nod in what many considered an unearned majority decision. Sluggish, bereft of ideas and incoherent of strategy, Povetkin underlined the problem that one-time handler Teddy Atlas summed up so perfectly during his time in the Russian?s camp: you need a firm identity to beat a Klitschko, and the thirty-four-year-old Povetkin just doesn?t seem to have one. People talk of him as ?well-schooled,? or ?technically-polished.? We hear that he is ?correct? although ?his boxing won?t set the world on fire.? When Wladimir recently compared his style to that of Mike Tyson, it was hard to hear him over the stifled guffaws of the pressmen retyping it. It is harder to think of a fighter that is less like Mike Tyson.
Yes, he moves forwards often, and yes, he uses the occasional slip or step to buy an opening, but he is almost entirely without Tyson?s dynamism or fluidity. In essence, he is exactly what the sum total of his sporting life?s work tells us he is?a former Olympic, World, European and Russian champion who has yet to find his professional selfdom.
But?the World Heavyweight Championship confers that identity, in the blink of a single fight-ending punch. The Heavyweight King does not worry about how he is defined by boxing because the sport is defined by him. To hold that title is in itself a growling challenge to any within earshot. Povetkin can make an identity by finding within himself the strength to overturn these long odds and turn himself to history. He can become a moment.
Since Huck, he has been treading water and that is alarming because it suggests a fighter who got a bad scare and then set out to protect the big payday. At least his last opponent was of the right dimensions and at 6-foot-5 and 232 pounds the unbeaten but undermatched Andrzej Wawrzyk probably gave Povetkin some notion of the geometry he will have to solve in Wladimir. He also displayed much of what is good about him in this contest. A near-master of every punch in the book he throws them with crisp accuracy, turning in a heartening 50% connect ratio with his jab in the first round. A reach listed by BoxRec.com as 75 inches and a frame measuring just 6-foot-2 means he will likely to struggle to land this jab against the 6-foot-6, 81-inch frame of the #1 contender, but his jab is a good one, and it is certainly better to have a good one than a bad one.
Also demonstrated were a ruthless streak and a surprisingly snappy spring in his step when it came to closing the distance on a suddenly injured opponent. Povetkin does not appear entirely bereft of technical chances, mainly because of his impressive shortening of the overhand-right so many have struggled to reach Wladimir with. A lack of real handspeed and that reach issue means he will very likely have to endure that same desperate struggle, but it?s a punch, and punches are what he needs.
The $23 million purse bid by Russian promoter Vladimir Hryunov is something I think he needed, too. This drew the fight out of Germany and away from Klitschko machine and into Povetkin?s homeland. Hopefully reports in The Independent, perhaps Britain?s most respected daily broadsheet, of ?whispers abound of heavy betting on the home fighter among Russian mafia? will come to naught, but might they disrupt Wladimir?s own crucial psychological preparation? This certainly seems to be a cornerstone of the Russian strategy. In addition to bringing Wladimir out of his comfort zone and into the cauldron that is Moscow, Boxing News has reported that team Povetkin have hired none other than Dereck Chisora to take on the enemy-camp role on fight night. Chisora?s duties would include the role of witnessing the wrapping of Wladimir Klitschko?s hands, bringing him right into the bosom of the Ukranian?s preparations pre-fight, a duty normally performed in respectful silence. I?m not sure that Chisora is well acquainted with respectful silence. For those that remain, perhaps quite rightly, unimpressed, remember that it was Chisora who spat full in Wladimir?s face that night of the Londoner?s fight with Vitali Klitschko, and that it was Wladimir who admitted to being ?psychologically sick for three days? after the incident. One feels something may have been lost in the translation as far as that quote is concerned, and I am never that convinced by tales of harassment outside the ring bringing dividends inside the ring anyway.
Nevertheless, Wladimir is a fascinating specimen. A fighter whose style and mentality are designed entirely around his weaknesses and protecting them?a first for a heavyweight King, should he become one?he nevertheless carries his territory with him as surely as the fightingest of fighting dogs, as surely as Mayweather, Vitali or Juan Manuel Marquez. He is acutely aware of it, and he protects it brilliantly, and punishes those that transgress it without mercy. But I am not sure he has the steel-trapdoor mind of those three men. I?m not quite convinced that these games will agree with the Zen-like state he adopts in the ring. Wladimir has become a physical guru, every bit as much as George Foreman was one before him and as any great guru knows, small ripples can become a raging torrent.
I digress. Povetkin lacks the head-movement, physicality and aforementioned dynamism to beat Wladimir by my reckoning. He is static, and whilst probably not quite as easy to hit as the Huck fight made him seem, he is no phantom either. His style is mother?s milk to Klitschko.
Nevertheless, it made me smile to remember that between the giant Wawrzyk and the disaster against Huck, Povetkin had battered a fighter that used to be Hasim Rahman. Rahman lacked dynamism too, but he cracked the bell that tolled when he destroyed Lennox Lewis in early 2001.
Sometimes, the Heavyweight Kingship does strange things to men.
King Klitschko. Sounds good, right? And by no means overdue.
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