Heavyweight Dreamer

At the end of last year I predicted that Lamon Brewster would emerge as the best heavyweight in the world sometime this year. Well at the weekend a little known Russian called Sergei Liakhovich proved me wrong by comprehensively outpointing Brewster.

Liakhovich's win follows the 7'3" Nicolai Valuev's capture of the WBA crown from John Ruiz. The Eastern European takeover of the heavyweight division is not finished yet. Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko fights America's IBF champion Chris Byrd on 22 April and is strongly expected to take the title. WBC title-holder Hasim Rahman has to make a mandatory defence against Kazak fighter Oleg Maskaev at some stage this year. If Klitschko and Maskaev both win we could have the almost unheard of situation where the USA does not even own a share of the World heavyweight title.

A few non Americans such as Lennox Lewis, Ingemar Johansson, Max Schmeling and Bob Fitzsimmons have managed to wrest the undisputed World heavyweight championship away from the USA. Though only Lewis managed to reign for any length of time. This sudden rise of the white Eastern European heavyweight is a major change. Since the heyday of Joe Louis African Americans have dominated heavyweight boxing. Admittedly the Cold War prevented any Eastern Europeans from competing as professional heavyweights. Even the Great Ali was only ever champion of the Western World.

In the same period White Americans virtually withdrew from Heavyweight boxing. With the notable exceptions of Jerry Quarry and Gerry Cooney there has not been a competive white American heavyweight since Rocky Marciano retired in 1956. By the late 1980s White heavyweights were joke figures who rarely got anywhere near the world title. There was a perception that 'White men simply couldn't fight'.

Legendary promoter Bob Arum clarified the point by saying it was White Americans who couldn't fight. Arum pointed out that eastern Europe produced plenty of tough white boxers who could fight. No-one took him too seriously. George Foreman predicted that there would be a Russian World Heavyweight champ by the end of the 20th century, people laughed.

Well it looks like those guys weren't kidding after all. The question is now whether the USA can respond to this new challenge and reclaim its dominance of Heavyweight boxing. The answer may be no. For decades boxing has been declining in the USA. The power base for heavyweight boxing looks as if it may remain behind the old Iron Curtain for the forseeable future.