13.05.05 – By Bradford Scott: We all have demons. Some of us face our demons, and become stronger people over time, while others choose to ignore their demons, hoping that the very thing they fear the most doesn’t come true. Wladimir Klitschko and Chris Byrd have faced demons in their respective careers, yet neither one has come back and proven that those demons were simply accidents, or flukes..
For Wladimir, it all started on 12/5/98, when he faced the hard punching Ross Puritty. Stamina issues in that fight led to a TKO of Wlad in round 11. And, like Wlad’s other two loses, he never rematched the tough Puritty. Then his problems struck again, only this time with much much more ferocity, when Corrie Sanders knocked Wlad down 3 times wn route to a 2nd round technical knock out win. With some creative positioning and no rematch with Sanders, again Wlad experienced a stamina problem. This time, one year later, it was a marginal heavyweight in Lamon Brewster, who managed to TKO Wlad, despite the fact Wladimir had severely pummeled Brewster for 4 consecuive rounds.
Again, as is his custom, Wlad chose to never avenge his loss to Brewster. Instead, Wlad got into the ring with someone he had no business fighting in the first place when he knocked out an overmatched, Eliseo Castillo in April, 2005. Needless to say, When you’re trying to prove you don’t have stamina and chin problems, you don’t fight a Castillo caliber fighter.
Now, onto Chris Byrd. Byrd’s problems started with the Klitschko brothers. Vitali was his first issue, In April, 2000, Byrd was being beaten badly, needing a knockout to win against Vitali, when he got a fluke TKO win due to Vitali injuring his shoulder. Yes, Byrd got a “W” in the win column, however, was losing badly on all 3 judges cards when Vitali retired on his stool in the 10th round.
Then onto Wladimir, who simply beat the tar out of Byrd in 12 of the most one-sided rounds ever recorded in boxing. Byrd, perhaps taking a page out of Wladimir’s playbook, never rematched Wlad. Following that fight, Byrd had some decent wins over a badly faded Evander Holyfield and David Tua. However, Byrd soon ran into problems again when he faced Fres Oquendo, and was awarded a gift decision in a fight in which he clearly lost bad, in my personal opinion. Byrd also had a very controversial draw with Andrew Golota, in which many writers and boxing fans had Golota winning by at least one round.
Nevertheless, Byrd failed to rematch Oquendo or Golota, instead moving on to a fight, which was almost a guaranteed decision win, against the very limited Jameel McCline. This was a fight in which Byrd ended up being knocked down in the 2nd round, and barely won a decision.
Now, Byrd has signed to face the unknown, Serguei Lyakhovich. Who in the heck is Serguei Lyakhovich? Well, he’s nobody. Personally speaking, I think he’s been ranked for the sake of this fight. He’s another easy decision win for Chris Byrd. Lyakhovich’s best win is over washed up Dominick Guinn in December, 2004.
Sadly, if Byrd is trying to improve his standing in the boxing community, the choice of Lyakhovich for an opponent is a bad way of going about it. Byrd needs to get into the ring with Wladimir Klitschko and prove that he can beat him. If Wlad is so bad, as everyone claims, it should be an easy win, right?
What about fighting Oquendo and Golota? Yeah, Golota is fighting Brewster on May 21, but if he wasn’t, do you think he’d be on the short list of opponents for Byrd? Very doubtful, in my opinion. Would Oquendo be on that potential list of opponents? The funny thing is, both Wlad and Byrd were trying to get Serguei Lyakhovich as their next opponent. I smell something fishy here.
If Byrd and Wladimir want to repair their damaged reputations, then they seriously need to take lessons from people like Joe Louis, Lennox Lewis and Shane Mosley. When you lose badly, then you need to come back and rematch the people who beat you, otherwise it gives the perception to the public that you are afraid, which lowers their opinion of the fighter dramatically. Fighting people like Eliseo Castillo and Serguei Lyakhovich as “placeholders,” doesn’t prove anything. Shane Mosley lost his rematches, yet at least he left no question that he wasn’t afraid of the people who beat him.
It is unfathomable to me how Chris Byrd, being IBF Champion, could preach about “unification” and accept a fight like this. I’m sure Ruiz is free, and would be happy to give Byrd a helping hug that night.
Bradford Scott can be reached at hirebrad@hotmail.com