Thank You For Not Boxing: retired on time, Vol 2: Oleg "Big O" Maskaev

At last! The burly coal miner - born in Kazakhstan, raised in Uzbekistan (and representing them as an amateur in international tourneys), later sharing in common with Roy Jones, Jr. dual citizenship in both the US and his ancestral home of Russia (nationalized by Putin nine years before Jones was) - had a rough & tumble ride in the fight game, which is blessedly over.

It has been just shy of 2 years since he last fought and in all likelihood Olly never will again. There were murmurings in 2013 of chasing a title shot or continuing to goad ex-champ Vitali Klitschko into granting him a big payday rematch (having issued Klitschko a TKO defeat in the amateurs, on an injury to Vitali's hand from, presumably, a punch Maskaev blocked on his steel-pipe arms...though details of the match are scant and video nonexistent, with conflicting accounts from the camps of Maskaev and Klitschko, with the former claiming Maskaev scored a "knockout" and/or made Dr. Ironfist quit, and the latter maintaining it was a fluke) but thankfully he decided after triumphing over fellow shot-to-bits 90's holdover Danny Williams that enough was enough. Considering he was deep into his forties and had been knocked out several times, it actually was a pretty decent run on which Maskaev bowed out - stopping Owen Beck faster than Artur Szpilka or Deontay Wilder recently had, then getting off the canvas and outpointing Jason Gavern and sputtering to a finish with Danny Williams, having just enough left in his tank for a comfortably wide UD (the official scores were fair, and spot-on...though a knockdown call in round 10 was missed by the ref, and would have made the cards even wider in Maskaev's favor). While he did floor Williams late, Maskaev was looking a bit ragged and had there been championship rounds he may have been in danger of actually getting stopped himself if Williams had found a second wind. Plus, while he took a lion's share of the rounds, much of the contest was a bit close for comfort and the conclusion Maskaev rightfully drew from that was that his time had come to an end. When you consider just how very badly far gone Williams is (he oughtn't have been given a license by any scrupulous commission for the last six years, and has progressively worsened over them) that was a good call.

By then it had been a long journey since he first put on hand wraps - three decades, in fact. Even if you discount the Klitschko incident as having been a fluke, Maskaev's amateur campaign was still formidable, and he was a respected and prolific member of a strong Russian national team.

Maskaev, amazingly, made his pro debut by knocking out Aleksandr Miroshnichenko, another decorated Russian amateur with a record of 210-13 and claiming bronze at the Seoul Olympics in '88. (eliminated in the semis by Riddick Bowe, though he dropped Bowe twice...and that's with headgear and poof-y gloves!). Miroshnichenko was 21-0 (15) in the pros when Maskaev upset him. :admin

Despite that auspicious start, his momentum was soon arrested by the first signs of his Achilles' heel. Oliver McCall (having risen & fallen in the preceding couple of years from relative obscurity & being known primarily as Mike Tyson's sparring partner to upsetting Lewis to become champ, only to flip the belt to Bruno) began his post-reign comeback with a 90 second blitz of Maskaev. In a gutsy move, Big O rushed back in with an even bigger puncher the following year - and was arguably on the verge of upsetting one David Tua before succumbing to his power in the eleventh. That he made it that far with a hitter like Tua was impressive enough on its own, let alone that he performed so well before the KO.

From there it would continue to be an up-and-down rollercoaster for Maskaev, with his chin getting cracked and letting him down every time he started building up steam. He racked up a long string of victories, with lots of filler but some of genuine quality (Stewart, Tshabalala, Jefferson and most notably - and unforgettably, in terms of memorably iconic boxing visuals - prime Hasim Rahman, emitting him from the ring!) before suffering a spate of knockouts in rapid succession at the hands of Kirk Johnson, Lance Whitaker and Corey Sanders. Ever dauntless, he put together another long string of victories (highlighted by Sinan Samil Sam and then Hasim Rahman, again - dumping him from the squared ropes, again) only to run smack into Sam Peter, then considered the biggest raw puncher at heavyweight. By his final sparking, doled out by Nagy Aguilera, he was a ruined, shot fighter - but still kept slugging away stubbornly, hell bent like Ahab on making Vitali fulfill his numerous promises to settle their score. I'm not saying Vitali ever ducked him, as that would be ludicrous, but he did pay lip service and wasn't a man of his word. If he were to have not strung the poor man along, Maskaev very well may have retired on the heels of the Aguilera embarrassment. Most of his knockouts came against world-rated big punchers (what crappy management this guy had to continually be fed to guys like that all throughout his career, knowing his chin liabilities :-() but Aguilera is poorer than any of the others by some distance, and that does include Corey Sanders.

Little known fact: Maskev was close friends with longtime spar mate, Zuri Lawrence - perhaps kindred spirits bonding over their inverse proportion of talent and size to woefully low punch resistance. Otherwise this odd couple had very little in common (save having a mutual rival in Hasim Rahman...ironically Lawrence came very near scoring the only knockout win of his professional career over a gassed Rahman, but the Rock would rally to exploit his weak chin), exemplary as they were of their countries' opposing styles and with cultural backgrounds as different as their physiques...and they were on extreme polar ends of the spectrum in terms of power :yep.

I'm glad he was able to mount a nice little run at the end (all things considered) to restore some pride and distance himself from the ugly Aguilera bombardment, and that he chose when he did to walk away. Chasing after Vitali was a fool's errand, and if he got his wish it would have been lucrative in the short term but hazardous to his post-retirement health. The fact that he was looking shaky late against Williams (rocked enough to need to hold before the final bell, limping across the finish line and feeling the still-dangerous power of Williams, unable to avoid it with his already naturally slow reflexes dulled by age) boded very poorly for his chances versus anyone even remotely near fringe contention, let alone Vitali.

Overall, he did alright for a guy with no chin, speed or athleticism. Goes to show that being strong (even without a conventionally sculpted body) with a bit of pop and good fundamentals can help overcome even obstacles as glaring as those he faced, and even with those flaws compounded by a horribly mismanaged career.

Наслаждайтесь жизнью, Олли! :hi:

 

Even in the amateurs his poor chin and susceptibility to handspeed was evident, and occasionally interrupted his successes (which came more frequently than would be the case after he went pro, though he did become WBC heavyweight champ...no small feat, unless your name is Bermane Stiverne and you get the sweetheart deal of just having to beat Arreola for the vacant title :yep)


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(...to be fair, Balado was a top Cuban amateur, throwing blazing fast combos and catching Maskaev on the button)

 

Sad tale, actually, Roberto Balado Méndez. :verysad

Largely forgotten today, he was flowering into a bona fide great and top pound for pound Cuban amateur, even as part of a generation that was perhaps the island nation's deepest ever (boasting the likes of Félix Savón, Lorenzo Aragón, Joel Casamayor, and Mario Kindelán - all of them Olympic gold or silver medalists, with dozens of matches in the Olympics, Pan-Am Games, and world championships between them, most of them W's...)

At just 25 years old his accolades numbered highly enough already to start mentioning his name alongside those above. He was a Val Barker trophy winner at the Barcelona Olympics in '92, achieving this at super heavyweight (this is roughly the equivalent of a pro HW boxer reaching the p4p #1 spot), a 5x national amateur champion in Cuba, and captured gold not only in Barcelona but at the Pan-Am games and thrice at the world championships.

Even stripping away those glowing decorations, his record was 122-9 - a superb one, considering that Cubans good enough to compete internationally were always matched tough and never protected.

What's even more impressive about that record is that of his nine losses, four of them were dealt by Savón, widely considered the Cuban GOAT or at worst #2 behind Teófilo Stevenson. Of the remaining five, one came to Andrew Golota and one to Larry Donald - both of them narrow on points. Nothing to be ashamed of there.

Unfortunately, smack in the middle of his prime, he was killed when a car he was riding in got struck by a train. Horribly violent way to go, and he leaves behind a Chava Sánchez-like "what if" mystique, though he isn't nearly as well-remembered.

 

Yes, and Nikolai didn't have enough power to check Olly's chin. The long jab could be a problem though...and Maskaev wasn't going to be able to pull off a Chagaev or Haye style game plan.