Heavyweight Unification

Here's a good article on the upcoming unifying fight, and how important it is to the division.

The fractured state of the heavyweight division has long been the scapegoat for the declining popularity of boxing.

Wladamir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov intend to take the first step toward gluing the division — not to mention the sport — back together.
Klitschko, the IBF champion and widely considered the best of the four current titleholders, will face WBO champ Ibragimov on Feb. 23 at Madison Square Garden, in the first unification fight in eight years in boxing's marquee division.
"At this point, in the heavyweight division, we are desperate," Klitschko said Tuesday at a news conference announcing the fight. "We need only one champion and stop all these conversations when the next unification is going to be. With this press conference it is over."
Or at least finally starting.

Not since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in their rematch in 1999 has there been a heavyweight unification fight, and the road to this one wasn't easy.
When Ibragimov won his title by easily out-pointing Shannon Briggs in June, the 2000 Olympic silver medalist quickly made a deal to fight WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev in Moscow later in the year. But Chagaev came down with an illness and had to back out, leaving Ibragimov to easily dispatch fill-in Holyfield.
Interim WBC champion Samuel Peter has a number of mandatory challengers waiting in line, which could tie him up for some time, leaving just one alternative for Ibragimov.

The deal was made with Klitschko, who wanted a fight for a unification from Day 1," said Leon Margules of Seminole Warriors Boxing, one of the handlers for Ibragimov. "That is why this is the heavyweight championship for the true heavyweight champion, because all the other heavyweight champions don't want to play."
Not that there haven't been terrific fights recently; they just aren't coming out of this dysfunctional division.


Oscar De La Hoya's super-welterweight fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. earlier this year set records for most television buys and a $19 million live gate. Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley fought an entertaining 12-round welterweight bout just last month, and Mayweather and undefeated Ricky Hatton will face each other in another marquee title fight on Saturday in Las Vegas.
But none of them have the allure of the heavyweights.


"If we talk about being the heavyweight champion of the world, I can't even compare it to other sports," Klitschko said. "I don't know other titles that are so important and so valid and so powerful."
Once the fight was made between the two champions from former Soviet republics — Klitschko is from Ukraine, Ibragimov from Russia — they decided to stage it at Madison Square Garden over more lucrative offers from Moscow and Germany.
What better place to help breath life back into the sport than boxing's so-called mecca?


"I told you last time I was here you would see great things," said Ibragimov, who has fought twice before at the Garden. "Now you will see a great unification fight."
The 31-year-old Klitschko (49-3, 44 KOs) has already proven he's a fighting champ. After winning his IBF belt from Chris Byrd with a seventh-round TKO in June 2006, the 6-foot-6, 245-pound Olympic gold medalist knocked out Calvin Brock and mandatory challengers Ray Austin and Lamon Brewster.

He figures to have a tremendous advantage in size and experience over the 32-year-old Ibragimov (22-0-1, 17 KOs), a 6-2, 220-pound southpaw who almost certainly will rely on his quickness and stamina in an attempt to wear down his opponent over 12 rounds.
It's a tactic that has rarely worked against Klitschko.
"I don't think this is going to go the distance," said Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward, who appeared with Klitschko's camp. "I think most people consider Wladamir as the real heavyweight champion."


Fortunately for fight fans, come February that won't be entirely speculation. "

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As for that last line of the artilce regarding further unification, I don't think that's very plausible, not in the near future, anyway.

With Chag fighting Skelton, then probably the Valuev Laik winner, then the winner of that fight fighting the Golota Mollo winner (that's how I take it), I think we can rule out the WBA being in this mix, anytime soon.

Unless Valuev wins the title from Chag, which is very likely. And Valuev may have a window of time to slip in a voluntary defense against the Wlad Ibrag winner, before he has to face the Golota Mollo winner.

But of course, this window of time of Valuev's would also have to coincide with the Wlad Ibrag's limited window of time to get in a voluntary, before HE has to fight his own mandatory(mandatories).

Putitng together a second unification fight will be quite a feat, to say the least. But I think the parties involved will probably say to hell with the mandatories, and go ahead with it, anyway. At least I hope. cause satisfying the mandatory requirements of all three orgs will be next to impossible, unless all three orgs come together and make a doable schedule for this unified champion.

As I see it, that's the only way one man will ever be able to maintian more than one title/ titles; for the orgs to act as one, and agree a set sequence of mandatories that they all approve of. One mandatory at a time, that satisfies them all, so as to not make one org get upset and pull his titlebelt away.

 

I hope so, too.

Valuev, Chagaev, Sergei.............I don't really think it'd matter who has the WBA title, as long as he fights the Ibrag Wlad winner, at some point over the next year or so.

But for now, after February, having one fighter with two belts is a fantastic start, given what the division has been like, without anyone to stand above the rest, for so long.

As has been said, once one fighter has these two titles, it'll make the other two remaining titleholders seem meaningless, and their sole title, minimal, in comparison. :good And hopefully, they'll see that they have to also get in on the unification thing.

If you have one hot woman on your arm, then suddenly your buddy comes walking by all cocky and full of confidence, with TWO hot twin blonde babes with him, suddenly your one, sole babe is not as appealling, anymore.............LOL