Henry Maske

A God Among Men. Beat all he faced. Great operator.

 

Turned me gay briefly in the mid '90's before I discovered auto erotica asphyxiation. A great man.

 

Very boring style and under performed against Hill in biggest fight. Spoke to John Scully many years ago who did say Maske was by far his toughest opponent for what it's worth. He was man who did fight some notable contenders including Michael Nunn And Thorton.

 

Yes, but he defeated Hill ten years later! Possibly the greatest comeback in the history of sport.

 

I actually think Maske is a bit underrated. Certainly a skilled boxer, even though he was painful to watch.

 

Do you think Maske outboxes DM?

 

John Scully, who's posted here before, wrote about his fight with him once. Scully lost a wide decision but served as one of his sparring partners after that fight. He said during their fight he couldn't figure out his jab and his patterns but while sparring him he figured it out and never had a problem with him again. I don't know exactly what that says, but I think Scully was trying to say he was a very robotic fighter and was maybe surprised that nobody had figured him out. However I suppose if you spar someone enough you figure them out to some degree eventually. I'll stop now as I don't want to put words in his mouth but I could ask him his opinions on what I've said and Maske.

 

I thought Maske already deserved the decision in his first fight vs Hill to be honest. This was another prime example of a foreign boxer winning a decision over a home fighter in germany, and with a controversial verdict at that, contradicting the false theory the guestfighter had to Ko the hometown star in order to win the bout.

A highly discussed light heavy showdown with rival DM never took off, probably because Kohl and Sauerland couldn't agree on the terms. The two were champs at roughly the same time, though Maske started out a little earlier, won the IBF crown in 1992 or so, DM beat Barber to clinch the WBO belt in 1994. I'm certain had they met early in their career, or up onto the first Rocco fight of DMs in 1996, Maske would have won a decision. While imo the more dedicated DM later on would have beat Maske had they met from 1997 onwards.

On a side note for me Maske also won his first encounter with Rocco, though it was defo close enough to warrant a rematch. People tend to scream "robbery" far too easily.

 

The guy that knocked DM down in his first WBO title defense was a spaniard, to my understanding, not a mexican. The first Girard fight indeed was close, Girard was more mobile and the more fluid fighter and kept connecting, with DM plodding after him, chasing him without much success early on. Imo Girard did win the majority of the early and middle rounds. With the rounds winding down though DM's stamina paid off and he caught him a few times flush late on, but was it enough to make up for the number of rounds he had given up to this point? The benefit of the doubt may decide for a draw and Girard got his deserved rematch which he lost fair and square.

 

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=6197&cat=boxer
Roberto dominguez, a spaniard, Darius was down in the first and got caught again early in the second, before finishing the guy off with a single left hook. I watched the fight at ringside but it was bloody long ago. I remember the spaniard saying DM got lucky and recommending him to visit a church and light a candle because of his "fluke win".

While its true that maske got more exposure due to his TV contract all the while DM boxed for a pay TV channel with limited audience that notwithstanding darius was still well know on national scale and a possibly maske show down was talked about a lot. If you really had never heard of him prior to Rocco 1 you can't have been much into boxing at the time. But Maske was Germanys big Number boxingwise and Kohl's Universum stable - spear headed by their lead fighter DM - was only up and coming so to speak.

True though back then the WBO was a lesser regarded belt compared to the "old three", a thing that gradually changed because of valid WBo titleholders such as DM KLitschko Calzaghe and Hamed amongst others holding that belt.

Maske never said a bad thing about Darius to my understanding. Maske's always been a gentleman with regards to rivals.

 

He was calling him out constantly during that time if my memory serves me right, though early on this was maybe more of a marketing strategy in order to get more widely known, in order to get talked about in the same breath with maske who was THE star figure of german boxing. But no, ever since he beat Barber in 1994 he was on a much higher popularity level than before. "Premiere" to my knowledge had a few hundred thousand subscribers already and Darius from the barber win onwards fought his title defences in the sporthalle Hamburg - then the biggest sports arena in Hamburg with a capacity for 6.500, while before the barber win he only filled smaller halls with capacities up to 2.000 people.

In the last stages of his career a new and much bigger sports arena was built here with a capacity for 13.000 or so thousands and Darius fought there for the fading moments of his career.

Maske and his management were aware of darius, there were interviews and you name it. Darius had his base in Hamburg, while Sauerlands events were for the most part fought in western germany or in Berlin, here in Hamburg Universum was the bigger number from the barber win onwards. I think it wasnt until the late 2000s that sauerland actually had their first own event staged in germany's second biggest city, cos that had been "enemy ground" until then, but i would need to look that up to be precise. How do you think they could have filled the pauli football stadium with dm for Rocco 1 otherwise, certainly not with Rocco alone. DM was in the papers here and he drew a lot of people, certainly.

The wbo albeit it wasnt quite on the level of IBF WBA or WBC, it was still bigger than the IBO or WBU baubles, it was like a belt in between the big ones and the meaningless ones. By the end of the 1990s or a little later I d say it was on the same level as the other 3. IMo fighters like darius helped boost the image of the belt.

 

No.

THe colour line arena wasn't built before around 2002 as i told you already. That means in effect Darius was filling the biggest indoor venue in hamburg available at the time (time frame 1994 to 1996) which was the alsterdorfer Arena. He had attendances of up to 6.500 regularly even when fighting low profile opponents and when a mega fight like the rocco one was staged around 25.000 turned up. He had his base In hamburg but was well known outside of it. The fact you seemingly didn't know him before Rocco 1 means you werent much into boxing at the time. End of. You only watched Free tv broadcasted boxing, thats fair enough, I watched both free and Premiere boxing. The rest of your post dealing with beyer may and ottke and venues in eastern germany etc wanders off aimlessly into other directions not previously adressed and is slightly beside the point so i wont comment much on that.

 

Alright, I mave misunderstood your last post to a degree, sorry if I came off impatiently. Believe me DM was a name at that time already. Germany didnt have any World champs in between Rocco in the late 1980s and Maske in 1992. With that title win boxing became a household sport in germany that was televised on national scale.

Then DM emerged beating a respectable fighter in Barber for the WBO title. I m from Hamburg and watched the majority of his early bouts live at ringside, the rest of them on TV, I even worked for the press (dpa) and the reports from the agency went to customers all across the country and were printed. DM was in the sports / boxing press constantly, especially so after 1994. Fact.

Of course Maske was the true mega star with much higher TV ratings, thats probably why DM called him out even at a time when such a match seemed to have little chance of materializing. By getting mentioned alongside Maske his management and him hoped to gain popularity. Premiere had around 200.000 subscribers at the time, from memory at least, not all of them watched boxing i know. But if you add up the figures of subscribers plus the reports from the printed press plus the thousands in attendance over years watching his fights its clear that DM was a household name, not quite in Maskes category but certainly well known. Of course there were people who had never heard of him. But either these people didnt live in Germany or they werent following boxing.

From around 1995 or so onwards DM would have been a good opponent for Maske, even namewise, before the Barber win he probably was no more than a fringe contender. Members from Sauerlands stable were ringside for DM fights and vice versa, both teams profitted from each other's rivalry as the boxing boom, which was triggered off by Maske, could only gain by that, the more ballyhoo the better. Sauerland surely had the edge early on, by the late 1990s Kohl had caught up. Maske by then was retired and Ottke not yet firmly established, while DM became the linear champ by beating Hill. Kohl also had a very good cruiser champ in Gomez, a lightweight in Grigorian, 2 heavyweight champs in the making in the shape of the KLitschkos etc.

Thats why DM became an interesting object for Sauerland to be called out for a showdown as you mentioned. Before that time, when Maske was still the man, he got called out by the rivalling stable in return for the same reasons. Such matches rarely come off because neither side is willing to concede to the other (the TV rights, question who ll promote the event, question what share does which fighter get etc etc), too many egos are involved

Its a shame so many different abc bodies exist, so in order to evaluate the significance of a particular world body I usually went by who was holding the belt of the respective body at a certain time and the names I mentioned at that time for the wbo - see post above - were good enough for any meaningful world body.

If we were to mention the scandals of the original main three bodies neither would remain as objective or sincere. The IBF scandal, the WBC was involved in Rocco getting tricked out of his belt won by NUnn, the WBA introduced regular world champs and super champs in order to cash in sanctioning fees more than just once etc etc, none of them would remain in the end.

 

i was ringside for grigorian beating rudolph to a pulp who had to be carried out on a stretcher as a result.

Ralf Rocco becoming a world champ from 1995 to 1997 at cruiserweight was one of the miracles accomplished by sdunek, as Ralf himself acknowledged later, Sdunek actually dragged him out of the beer pub into the gym to start exercise.

Bott, a painter from Baden wurtemberg, who became a short lived cruiser champ in 1992/1993, i watched him fight the argentinian nestor giovannini here in Hamburg, twice actually, he lost both matches, he was game and dedicated but very limited, developed problems with his eye sight and couldnt compete at top level anymore, he dissapeared after the second match, DM avenged the loss by beating Giovannini for the title a bit later, thus becoming a 2 division champ, but decided to lay down the belt as he wanted to continue at light heavy.

DM vs Ottke in 2000 would have been huge. I started being a member here on ESB in 2002 and we were still discussing a match even at the time, though DM was sliding by then, but in 2000 it would have been highly competitive.