Heavyweight Dreamer

When Lennox Lewis walked away from boxing as undefeated World Heavyweight Champion he did himself a great favour and left the heavyweight division in confusion. We currently have five men with some kind of reasonable claim on the World Heavyweight title, Vitalyi Klitschko (WBC), Chris Byrd (IBF), Lamon Brewster (WBO), John Ruiz (WBA) and James Toney (WBU). Who is the champ, I don’t really know.

Klitschko gave Lewis a tough fight before losing on cuts and won the WBC title vacated by Lewis by stopping the then WBO champ Corrie Sanders. Since then Klitschko has made one defence against Danny Williams. Is this enough to make him the new World Champ, no! Maybe if he survives his next fight against Hasim Rahman we will know how good Vitalyi is. The weakness on his record is a stoppage defeat to IBF Champ Byrd caused by a shoulder dislocation, despite this Ring magazine rates Klitschko as the World Champion.

Chris Byrd is a classy boxer who despite being small for a modern heavy at 6’1” and just over 200lbs is able to outbox much larger opponents such as the erratic Pole Andrew Golota and a fading Evander Holyfield. Byrd has beaten everyone put in front of him but because he is not contracted to Don King he cannot get fights with the big names.

Lamon Brewster’s stock is growing he emerged on the scene by beating Wladimir Klitschko, Vitalyi’s younger brother with a shock fifth round stoppage. He has subsequently KOd Golota in one round and now needs to face one of the other champions to strengthen his claim to be the number 1 heavyweight in the world.

John Ruiz probably has the weakest claim of the five. He only holds the WBA belt because it was stripped off James Toney for failing a drug test. Ruiz has won and lost this title a couple of times beating names like Holyfield, Kirk Johnson, Rahman and Golota along the way. He has also managed to lose the title to much smaller men like Roy Jones and James Toney. Toney’s failed drug test has given Ruiz a lifeline but he is unlikely to emerge from this pack as the World Heavyweight champion.

Toney has done well at heavyweight for a blown up middleweight but one has to expect that when he meets a genuinely heavy puncher his run will be over. However he did beat Ruiz in the ring and has subsequently outpointed Dominick Guinn another big heavyweight so he is a competitive heavyweight. His stoppage of Evander Holyfield was impressive but Holyfield was well over the hill by that stage.

Hopefully over the next year the real champ will emerge. The media favour Klitschko though I would only agree if he managed to beat both Byrd and Brewster. I don’t really believe Ruiz or Toney have a shot against these three. The question is who will make the first move towards a unification fight.