By César Pancorvo: This is worse than the weak period in the late 1920s and the early 30s, the interlude between Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. In the past two years I’ve been writing on how we are starting to see a bright future in the heavyweight division.. I have always been interested in that division and have defended it –or, at least, I tried to see the pros of it instead of easily accepting and assimilating the arguments of the typical haters–, but this last year has been enough to convince me that the division is not getting any better and the future seems adverse.
During the last months of 2007, we were ad portas of a season full of heavyweight fights that I thought would bring favourable conclusions for the state of this cancerous division: Klitschko-Ibragimov, Chagaev-Skelton, Peter-Maskaev, Povetkin-Chambers, etc. Klitschko-Ibragimov was significant but unexciting, Chagaev-Skelton was no better (and it wasn’t significant or important), Peter-Maskaev was a good but it came one year later (the infaust WBC mess); only Povetkin-Chambers was productive and brought us something constructive –the arrival of Sasha to the top echelon of the division, whatever that means in this miserable era.
The Lineal title has been vacant since early 2004, and the last successful title defence of the Lineal title was done in 2003. Wladimir Klitschko was the first one to unify, but that hasn’t been enough, many do not recognize him as the Champ. Some people want him to unify all four alphabet belts…Maybe those fans won’t have a real Champ until 2018.
The present of the division is terrible, and the future doesn’t seem inspiring. Who are the top dogs? Klitschko, clearly, is the primus inter pares since he beat Chris Byrd in 2006. Sam Peter, who was supposed to fight Audley Harrison or Matt Skelton, isn’t a particularly impressive fighter, but there could be some fireworks in his fight against Vitali Klitschko. Ruslan Chagaev is rematching Nikolay Valuev, and Alexander Povetkin is waiting for his title shot against Klitschko.
What else do we have in this pathetic division? David Haye and Odlanier Solis. And then…Andrew Golota? Impossible, no matter how much they overrate him. Chris Arreola? Denis Boytsov? Kevin Johnson? The future of the heavyweights seems just as depressing as the present, or maybe even worse. I really hope we never sit at the table and start talking about the “good times” of Vitali Klitschko, John Ruiz, Chris Byrd, or the “era” of Wladimir Klitschko, Samuel Peter and Nikolay Valuev.
What are the main problems? Apart from the general problems that are ruining boxing as a sport (too much alphabet titles and too much PPVs) there is lack of talent (Klitschko and Povetkin are the only really talented fighters in the Top10, and Klitschko is eclipsing that talent with bad strategies) and lack of important fights (the #1 heavyweight hasn’t faced the #2 since Lewis beat Holyfield in 1999).
It is sad because a quality fighter like Wladimir Klitschko would deserve a better era to demonstrate how much he can resist and accomplish.