Wrote a story about it back in college. Klitschko If you were looking for Vladimir Klitschko’s fist on April 10th 2004 you’d have found it in Lamon Brewster’s face. The Iron Giant was boxing at a hit ratio approaching fifty percent, throwing two and three times as many punches as his opponent. The man is a slugging machine, built to order by the Soviet government, in much the way they would build their tanks in the good old days. He’s big I say. Big like a mountain, big like a waterbuffalo, big like a truck. I mean, he’s big. So why did he lose? I first saw Vladimir fight in December 7th of 2002. He was fighting in Las Vegas against Jameel McCline. Now, McCline is no bum. He just looked like it in the ring that night. Klitschko was the whole show. It was like he was shadow boxing and the 6’6” 263 pound challenger wasn’t even there. Vladimir took the center of the ring and stayed there the whole night. It reminded me of what my high school chess coach always used to say. “Take the middle,” he said. That’s because the center of the board is where all the action is. If you control the center you are always in a position to strike and your opponent must always come to you on your terms. This was before I learned that chess was Vladimir’s favorite hobby. But I had an inkling. Jameel McCline kept circling him, wasting his energy, then rushing in to try to land a few power punches. His attacks broke like the waves on the sand and Klitschko sent him back to the ropes with a stinging jab and a hard straight right. During the middle rounds, the crowd began to boo. “You need to attack more,” McCline’s corner told him during the one minute rest interval. But it was no use. If Jameel attacked he’d take some hard blows to the kisser followed by Klitschko’s damaging left cross. McCline would clinch with him, but Vladimir would get the better of him there to. The fight was ended in the tenth round. McCline’s people had had enough and threw in the towel after a nineth round knockdown. They took their humiliation, took their challenger, packed up and went home with their tails between their legs. That night I slept and dreamt of many places, many things. I saw a four headed serpent rise out of the foam in the East. On each of the four heads were four belts with four jewels. The earth itself revolted and great stony forms scissored us to halves, to thirds, to nothing. All that lived burned. And I wept, for I was out of cigarettes. I stood next to a white robed angel and watched lightning crawl over the land like a limping spider. Children dragged their parents out of houses and staked them down to bake in the sun, because, they said, the meat was better that way. The moon was extinguished and the waves beat upon the angry breast of the sea. Into that coughing silence the angel neither spake nor answered, and after a while we parted like two friends of a friend that was never a friend. He left me there, all alone with the beast with the thousand thousand eyes, knowing that I was doomed. **** “The fix is in,” I thought, as soon as I saw Spinks and Judah nancying about in the ring together. It was a year and four months later. A great deal had happened to boxing in the interim. Vladimir had lost his title defense to the low ranked Corey Sanders, in an astonishing second round knockout. His brother Vitali got the title fight against heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, and lost due to a vicious gash above the left eye. Rumors flew about the boxing community, saying that Vladimir had a glass chin and his brother cut like paper. Tonight’s fight against Lamon Brewster would either confirm these reports or put them to bed. But I’d have to wait to find out. First came the Spinks vs. Judah fight for the welterwieght championship of the world. I was watching the fight on tv with my roomate Andy. Cory Spinks, the champion, won the first six rounds trading sissy slaps with a lethargic Zab Judah. Zab Judah, the Junior Welterweight characterized by his speed and counterpunching skill was sitting on his laurels playing a close defensive game. Don King was sitting in the front row with a grin to eat the world. **** him and his ***** of a mother!You see, he owned both fighters. That is to say, he put the whole thing together as their promoter. It made sense, in a ***** sort of fashion. Keep the score cards close so both fighters move up in ranking. Both fight easy defensive rounds so neither fighter really gets injured. Everyone looks good, and everyone gets paid. It made me sick. “I’ve had enough of this bull****,” I told my roomate. “I’m gonna make myself some dinner.” I left the room and popped two hotdogs into the microwave. When I got back, my roomate was laughing his ass off. “What? What happened?” “Some guy called out to Judah and he looks over at him like an idiot. Then Spinks jumped all over him.” He emphasized his point with a flurry of shadow punches to the body. I shook my head and snorted. Judah playfully placed Spinks in a headlock and rushed him toward the corner post. I groaned. “They could at least try to make it look real. I mean, kids today don’t even know how to throw a fight. What’s the world coming to?” In the twelfth and final round, thirty seconds before the bell, Judah landed a hard left that put Spinks through the floor. Visibly shaken, he got up. What ensued was twenty-five seconds of hard fighting, as both fighters hit each other with everything they had. “They should have been fighting like that the whole time,” I said. Of course, I knew Zab Judah had tried to double-cross Cory Spinks and Don King. Who wouldn’t double-cross those crooks for a unified title belt? What was more surprising is that they were caught completely off guard by the stool tossing, ref choking Southpaw who responded “**** you, I’m from Brooklyn” when asked for comment after the fight. I hope they’re all as happy with their thirty pieces of silver as Sonny Liston and Shoeless Joe are with theirs. To my chagrin, I learned that King represented Lamon Brewster as well. However, seeing Vladimir beat him mercilessly the first three rounds did wonders for my spirits. Brewster would try to clinch and lock up Klitschko’s 81” arms, get in close to deliver some vicious left hooks, but Klitschko had the size advantage. He pressed down hard on Brewsters neck and back. When the ref tried to break it up, Klitschko hurled Brewster like a rag doll, ten feet into the ropes. Everyone knew then who was the stronger. In the fourth round, Klitschko put Brewster to the mat three times. However, the contract specified that a three knockdown rule would not be in effect until after the fourth round. The first knockdown, Klitschko struck Brewster close and spilled him down onto the mat. The next knockdown was administered by long range punches. Then in the final seconds of the round, Brewster dragged Klitschko down with him and they both fell into Brewster’s corner. The bell sounded, and both men went to their corners. Klitschko made to finish his opponent in the fifth, but Brewster had an unexpected second wind. He landed a number of left hooks which had Klitschko stunned but standing against the ropes. The ref administered a standing count, and the fight continued. The bell sounded, but Brewster kept hitting Klitschko. Klitschko fell after the bell, and the ref called the fight for Brewster. “I don’t ****ing believe this!” Andy and I stared blankly at each other, then back at the screen. “Don King bribed the ref.” I haven’t been so disappointed since Lennox Lewis made a clown of Tyson in the eighth. He just took Tyson’s uppercuts and kept on coming. This was different though. “He could have gotten his wind back, like Brewster.” “They should have at least fought through the sixth,” Andy said. “One of them would have been knocked out. Damn.” “ Now it’s all on Vitali next week.” Vitali Klitschko was fighting Corey Sanders for the belt his brother had lost with the Klitschko honor. “Killing him won’t be enough,” I said. “He’s got to clobber him, then step back to watch him hurt. He’s got to kill him slowly. That’s the only way the Klitschkos will ever get any respect in this hemisphere.” Nevermind, that Vladimir won the Olympic gold medal for Superheavy weight boxing, or both brothers stellar professional records. In this business, you’re only as good as your last fight. “****ing Don King,” I said and punched the wall. Just then, there was a knock at the door. It was my friend Octaviano, standing in the hall with his green bathrobe on. “I’m pretty pissed at you,” I said. “Why?” “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all week.” “Didn’t you get my note?” “No.” “I told Mike to tell you I’d see you here tonight.” “He didn’t tell me that.” “That ****sucker. Well, I’m here now. What’s up?” “Don King’s ruined boxing.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” “That’s too bad. Let’s get the **** out of here.”
**** Boxing is rising and sliding stalking and trampling slipping in their own blood drowning in the air, legs crumpling under like tinfoil. They call it the sweet science, the sweet science of bruising. Slash their eyes with your laces, use your elbows, headbutt and low blow. Don’t go crying to the ref. I came to witness an execution. If I could, I’d have them crucify opponents ring center, and set ‘em on fire. Who cares if it’s a fair fight as long as it’s good? Give me blood. Give me blood. Give me blood, blood, blood stinging in the eyes, red when you spit, ballooning in your forehead like a big cherry hemorage. You’re not dead yet, ****er! Get up and fight! Sometimes, when a tornado knocks through town it will wreck and mangle all in it’s path then blow itself apart with the last ounce of it’s strength and in all that devastation, amidst all that carnage, stands a lone farmhouse untouched by the storm. That’s what the Klitschko/Brewster fight was like. I had a chance to watch it again three nights later. I’d had some time to really think and as I prepared to watch the fight for the second time my mind was full of unanswered questions. Before fighting Corey Sanders Vladimir had never been hit more than twenty times in a round. That is no mean feat, and a testament to his boxing ability, but it may mean that he had never had his chin tested. During the Brewster fight, he threw an average of 76 punches a round, administering what one ringside announcer called “a monstrous beating.” The average number of punches thrown per round by a heavyweight is 46 and I knew that he once punched himself out against Ross Purity, losing his legs in the tenth. I had to see this fight again. I had to know. It was like watching a completely different fight. Vladimir lost his steam in the second round. In the fourth he’d punch the clumsy Brewster in the face and then his arm would dangle at his side. His guard was completely gone and he was weazing. This sort of thing doesn’t just happen. Serious heavyweights train for a full fifteen rounds. Vladimir running on empty after only two rounds fueled speculation that he’d been drugged. Maybe, but at the time I had a different opinion. As two time felon wrestler one time heavy weight champion Jack Johnson so eloquently put it “Kill the body and the head will die.” “I guess Don King didn’t fix the fight,” I said. “Doesn’t look that way.” “He looked in really great shape.” “Weird. Maybe he really does have a soft chin.” “You know when his brother’s fighting Sanders?” “The 24th I think.” “Didn’t look like Brewster was as hurt this time as I thought. Maybe he was doing a rope-a-dope. You know, like Ali did to Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle.” “You don’t rope-a-dope with your head,” my roomate replied. I was inclined to agree. “It’s too bad,” he said. “It’s too bad.” Then after a time, “So…about that dream I had last night man, the one I was telling you about.” “The one with the…” “Uh huh.” “And then your mother cuts your dick off and feeds it to the…” “Uh huh. You don’t think that might have meant something do you?” “Nah. Everyone has that dream.” “Really?” “At least once.” I sat back nodding, reassured. “Have you ever had it?” “Oh, hell no! I’m not crazy.” I have seen men take such beatings in the ring that I cheered on my feet for five rounds waiting for one or both to die. It slaked my bloodlust, but that was all. I could sling cats over clotheslines with their tales tied together and watch them fight to the death if that was all I was after. Boxing is more than that. Boxing is rising and sliding stalking and trampling slipping in their own blood drowning in the air, legs crumpling under like tinfoil tempered by bobbing and weaving feinting and jabbing, shoulders rolling, legs shifting, punching and counterpunching. There is an art to it that our criminal class of common US boxers simply doesn’t possess. They have hard chins and heavy hands, but they cannot box worth a damn. Ali has Alzhimers and even Christopher Reeves can’t walk. It’s a shame when all that is necessary for a bum like Brewster to get a championship belt is take a terrific beating. Meanwhile, huge Russians with Ph.Ds in Sports Science and Philosophy, can tell the sad story of their defeat in five different languages.
^^^ Harsh, maybe but it was a good read. Good writing Ovid. On topic though, when George lost to Cassius Clay my heart sunk. I just could not fathom that he would lose that fight. I believed with everything in my soul he would be the victor that day in Africa. I really had given no chance to Clay at all and did not for a second think he could hurt big George. I don't even know if I would call it having "clay feet" but he pretty much thought he could walk through anything that was thrown at him and it ended in defeat. Whether there were some "iffy" tactics on his opponents side through it all is up to debate, still I have yet to recover from that one.
Patterson-Liston, September 1962. Dad went downtown Indy with Uncle Ray for the closed-circuit scrap. Of course, Dad got home early and Mom told him not to wake me up but he did and told me that my hero got smooshed; I cried myself to sleep that night as a nine year old.
