Boxing Rostrum

Ironic, is it not, that Jermain Taylor should show us the best of what he’s got in a fight where he’s battered to defeat. His skills and power were all on show for the first time at title level but his title has now gone along with his unbeaten record.

No shame in that first career loss, though. At last Taylor found himself involved in a great championship fight - one for the ages, I’d say - and although he came out a loser in the end it was Kelly, not Jermain, who’d looked like being blown away in a sensational second round.

As a spectacle we could hardly have wished for anything better. Both men were worthy of all praise in my book and I can’t wait for what appears to be a certain rematch some time in 2008, but it does seem likely that Kelly and Jermain will box other people before getting reacquainted.
Early rumours suggest the new middleweight champ might make a first defence against John Duddy at Madison Square Garden in the new year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Duddy’s team gamble on a lucrative title shot rather than have their man risk losing contender status by taking on somebody else in the queue first, because I reckon that’s always been the plan anyway, but I will be a little surprised if they go for it so soon.

Not that it would make much difference whether sooner or later. John Duddy will believe he can beat Kelly Pavlik. His fans will believe it too. With that in mind, I believe they can sell the match to a big audience, but my further belief is that Pavlik would beat down Irish John emphatically inside five rounds or so.

Injuries sustained by Audley Harrison in a car accident on Sunday weren’t all that bad judged by the fact he was released after being taken to hospital for treatment. That’s good news for the former Olympic champ.

Bad news is that the the fight he was scheduled to have this Saturday on the Clinton Woods card in Sheffield was against Paul King.

After giving himself an early Christmas present last year with that brutal revenge win over previous conqueror Danny Williams, Harrison announced that 2007 would be his year to grab a world title belt. That ambition got put on hold in February when Michael Sprott flattened him at Wembley, but the humiliating defeat didn’t keep Audley quiet for long, did it. He was soon back to saying how he’d still go on to be champ.

If that were the case, or if he really believed it to be so, how come Audley Harrison allowed himself to be matched against Paul King who has won five pro fights and lost eighteen. We saw more than enough of Harrison going in with overmatched foes when he first turned pro and signed that ten fight deal with BBC TV. Further helpings of the same are unacceptable.

I don’t see any way back for Audley. I don’t think he does either. Not really. Otherwise he’d surely be pursuing the obvious springboard – a clash with David Haye. Win or lose against Mormeck, Haye will be boxing heavyweights thereafter and I’m certain he’d jump at any chance of a meet with Harrison. But would Audley show similar enthusiasm. I don’t think so, do you.

A couple of weeks ago I made reference to “When Maskaev boxes Peter in the Garden next month, fingers crossed.” Well, it seems we didn’t have them crossed hard enough, did we.

Oleg has picked up back and ankle injuries, so his mandatory defence gets deferred again, and frustration continues for Samuel Peter who long since earned the right to challenge for the title.

They’re talking a delay of 90-100 days. I suspect that’s an optimistic guess. Peter will no doubt be thinking the same, and his camp want to get some action going by having the WBC nominate somebody else to box their man for the “Interim” title on the original date of October 6th.

Easy to see their point of view. Sam Peter has been well and truly messed about, all through no fault of his own, and the fighter deserves something good to come his way for once.

But I’m not sure whether I like that interim idea or not. No, I am sure. I don’t like it at all because in my book there’s no such thing as a championship fight unless it’s a real championship fight. Anyway, October 6th would surely be too short notice for the current WBC number two contender Vladimir Virchis to step in.

Wouldn’t surprise me if the interim situation is brought to life at a later date, though, should it become apparent, as I’m sure will be the case, that Maskaev needs more than the projected time to recover from his injuries and get back up to fighting fitness.

And what will happen if Maskaev, in the course of his recovery, decides the effort isn’t worth it and announces his retirement – only to have a later change of heart, as did Vitali Klitschko. The WBC would then have not one Champion Emeritus, but two. And no real heavyweight champion, period.

A farcical notion? Yes. But don’t go marking it down as completely improbable.

The IBF has sanctioned a four man elimination series to determine its next mandatory challenger for Wladimir Klitschko’s title. Anything that gets some top level action going is okay by me, so I applaud the IBF initiative in setting this up, especially with Alexander Povetkin among the nominated quartet.

I liked Povetkin when he was amateur and like him even more as a pro. He’s a natural at this game and I reckon he’s ready for the test against Chris Byrd on October 27th. If he gets past Byrd, as I believe he will, and then defeats the winner of the other semi final match between Calvin Brock and Eddie Chambers, Povetkin will have that number one slot.

The Russian isn’t ready for Klitschko yet. Not after just thirteen pro outings. But Povetkin’s last fight, against Larry Donald, showed how he’s progressing and maturing.

Donald is now in pension territory but remains an expert in the art of self defence and he’d gone to Moscow to throw a spanner in the works, not just pick up the money. Knowing that Alex would be desperate to impress in front of his home crowd Larry set out to mess him around, hoping that a frustrated Povetkin might lose his composure and try to force things, and maybe make a mistake that he, Donald, could step in and exploit.

That didn’t happen. Povetkin showed good concentration throughout, while keeping the pressure on well enough to claim a shutout on all three cards. He no doubt would have liked a knockout but wasn’t prepared to take silly risks to try and make it happen. Winning is everything, and that’s what he did. With a cool head.

Chris Byrd got hammered by Wladimir Klitschko last year, the second time he’s been beaten out of sight by the huge Ukranian, so it’s hard to figure why he’s got involved in a process where the prize, for him, would be more of that same torment. But involved he is, and I expect him to give Alexander Povetkin a lively argument.

We all know Klitschko is awesome when he’s in with a boxer he thinks can’t hurt him, and with Byrd not carrying the power to pose that kind of threat Wladimir had the confidence to unload freely with those long levers and beat Chris up from the outside.

For Byrd, things will be different against Povetkin. The Russian is also bigger than Byrd, but not that much bigger, and when Alex tees off on him Chris will be near enough in range to throw his own stuff back. And that he will surely do. Byrd’s a veteran now but cleverness comes with all that experience and, as he showed in defeat against Wladimir, he has plenty of guts to go with the savvy.

I’ll be surprised if a Povetkin victory doesn’t have to be hard won. I’ll be a bit disappointed too. Winning by knockout is always good for a boxer’s ego but it would be of greater benefit to Povetkin if he’s made to go all the way against Byrd, who can show him things he hasn’t faced before.

I’ve said all along that Alexander has the tools to be a champ. What he doesn’t have, so far, is sufficient ring time against quality opposition. If the Larry Donald fight saw Povetkin step up a notch, Byrd will bring him on further for sure, and by the time he’s dealt with the Brock v Chambers survivor – I’m prepared to jump the gun on that – the Russian will be a fully rounded title contender who’s ready to go for the big one.

If Povetkin has to put in a full hardworking shift to see off Chris Byrd, as I think is likely, how would that give him a realistic chance against a man who has twice battered that same Chris Byrd without breaking sweat?

Because Alexander Povetkin, unlike Byrd, would present Wladimir Klitschko with a physical threat. Povetkin, like Byrd, would be conceding height and reach to the towering Klitschko, but Alexander is a well schooled fighter who has the power to hurt Klitschko and you can be certain he’d go in there hell bent on doing exactly that.

When and if Klitschko defends against Povetkin, Wladimir will start favourite. He’s a mature and imposing champion who has, I suppose, earned that right. But, in Klitschko, I see a man who fights timid against punchers, and I really do think Povetkin has the right stuff to bring him down.

Talking the other day about Victor Oganov, and those twenty six straight kayo wins from the start of his career up until bumping into Fulgencio Zuniga, has jogged the memory and brought to mind a similar destroyer from yesteryear.

Fresno heavyweight Mac Foster stopped twenty four in a row from debut in late 1966 through June 1970. Foster was a fighter, not a boxer, but wasn’t just the mindless slugger type. His violent approach had some method to it and he was considered a genuine title threat by some, including the great Archie Moore who picked him as a sure future champ. Then, in fight twenty five, Foster met with catastrophe in the shape of Jerry Quarry.

Mac came out to work Quarry over like he had all the others, and looked the part early on, but Jerry was a terrific fighter and counter puncher who loved to have an opponent come straight at him. Foster did exactly that. In round six of a lively fight, Quarry caught him clean then barraged him to defeat.

Mac Foster went on to lose a points decision to Muhammad Ali after fifteen rounds in Tokyo a couple of years later, and eventually quit in 1976 with a record of thirty wins and six losses. All the victories had come via knockout while, of the men who beat Foster, Quarry was the only one to have conquered him inside schedule.

These days Quarry is best known, maybe only known, for the two fights he lost to Ali and the two defeats by Joe Frazier, but he deserves to be remembered for more.

Taking on Foster, who was being avoided at the time, was the sort of challenge Quarry thrived on. He did a similar job, in similar circumstances, on unbeaten Ron Lyle who went into the fight having flattened seventeen of his nineteen victims. Lyle was a menacing figure who was being steered well clear of by others but Irish Jerry took the job and handed him a real drubbing over twelve rounds in the same Madison Square Garden ring where he’d battered Foster, and where he would also blow away Earnie Shavers.

Shavers is still regarded by many as one of the hardest punchers in history, if not the hardest. That right hand of his was murder, and the left wasn’t a tickling stick, but when he went head to head with Quarry at boxing’s Mecca it was Earnie who ended up on the floor with chalk marks around him. Jerry did the trick in the very first round.

The Garden had earlier seen Quarry beat up Buster Mathis. Buster had lost only to Joe Frazier at the time and had bounced back from that disappointment to win six fights, in the last of which he’d outclassed George Chuvalo for an easy win by decision. If Jerry was meant to be the final part of a rehabilitation programme for the big guy from Grand Rapids, though, it didn’t work out as planned. Quarry dumped Buster in round two and thereafter did pretty much what he liked with him through the full dozen. It was a class display of box-fighting.

Like I said, Jerry Quarry was a terrific fighter at his best. He beat a lot of good men in his time and got to face just about all his most worthy contemporaries, with the notable exception of George Foreman. Some would say that’s just as well, but I’m not one of them. Jerry couldn’t handle Ali’s genius, nor cope with Frazier’s intensity, but I reckon he had the method and the tools to have got the better of big George.

Foreman had a jolting jab when he cared to use it but battered most opponents into submission with long, clubbing blows from both hands. I say Quarry was smart enough to have evaded plenty of those punches, and tough enough to have absorbed the ones that landed, and I reckon he would have delighted in firing his own stuff through a slack defence. Yes, I believe Jerry could have licked Foreman.

A win over George on his record would have seen Quarry’s name still given the kind of respect today that his abilities as a boxer deserved. As it is, he seems to have become a forgotten figure, vaguely remembered at best. Not with me, though. I know how good Jerry Quarry was.

So Vitali Klitschko’s comeback fight against Jameel McCline is off due to Klitschko’s back injury. Can’t say I’m all that surprised. The postponement will be frustrating for all concerned, not least the incapacitated Vitali himself, but this is just the latest setback for a guy who gets more injuries than a football team.

Klitschko underwent immediate surgery on his back, which has to be a serious concern for a boxer, and it could be he’ll decide to call it a career, again.

And the WBC had wanted to allow Klitschko, as its Champion Emeritus, a straight shot at Oleg Maskaev, thereby trampling on the rights of Sam Peter who had earned the mandatory contender slot by beating James Toney, not once but twice, in final eliminators.

Peter stood his ground and got justice in the end, and we should be thankful for that. It meant Vitali was in training for McCline and not Maskaev. The other way round and we’d now be looking at a further six months without a WBC heavyweight championship fight.

When Maskaev boxes Peter in the Garden next month, fingers crossed, it will be ten months since he eased past Peter Okhello in a comfortable voluntary, and fourteen long months since winning the crown from Hasim Rahman. That lack of activity on the title front is bad enough as it is without thinking about what might have been.

In case you're wondering, I'm not knocking Vitali Klitschko. It's not hard to understand why, encouraged by the WBC's bullshit rules, he had wanted to jump the queue for a title shot. I'm just glad he didn't get it. If it turns out that his latest injury means he never boxes again, though, I wish him all the best in whatever he chooses to do. Vitali was a formidable fighter, and a hard man. A champ.

In his second defence of the WBC light welter title, and in his thirty ninth fight, Junior Witter suddenly arrived as a boxing star last night. The shattering knockout of Vivian Harris with a seventh round left hook gives Witter a reasonable claim to be the division’s top man.

With their respective styles I thought things might get exciting, and they did, but I didn’t really expect such a crushing triumph for Junior. I don’t know about anybody else but it seemed to me beforehand that Witter would have his hands full against Harris, who had height and reach, was in great shape, and came to rumble.

As it happened, Witter was that bit quicker and sharper and hit too hard. You wouldn’t really say his performance was a revelation, because he’s shown in the past what he can do, but this was the best calibre guy he’s destroyed like that. Impressive stuff.

Enough to put Junior in with a chance of that long cherished crack at Ricky Hatton? Perhaps, but I wouldn’t call it likely. I don’t think that match will ever be made, irrespective of what transpires when Ricky meets Floyd.

We shouldn’t feel too cheated, though. Promoter Mick Hennessy said post fight that the next target for Witter is Paulie Malignaggi. Sounds good to me. With Hatton occupied elsewhere, Witter against the New Yorker would be the legitimate championship fight at 140 pounds in most people’s eyes, and a thrilling one at that. Bring it on.

Victor Oganov was being touted as a bit of a beast on account of he’d gone to 26-0, with every one a knockout, and even the top guys in the super middleweight division might have been getting curious about him. Now, though, the curiosity is over.

Oganov had built his career figures against a bunch of foes who weren’t very good, but last Saturday he was put in with Colombia’s Fulgencio Zuniga. Zuniga is something of a puncher himself but also has a touch of craft about him, which was bad news for the Russian who got broken up before being spectacularly despatched in the ninth of their bout for the, er, vacant IBO title.

The main difference between the two was that Zuniga knows how to throw a jab while Oganov only knows how to eat one – or a hundred and one. Boxing is still the name of the game and anyone who hasn’t even got the boxing basics, no matter how strong or powerful he may be, is always at a disadvantage when confronted by a guy who has. When Victor’s big hitting didn’t bring the Colombian down, he had no back up plan to go to. That simple.

Edwin Valero is another who likes knocking people over. And quickly. He won his first eighteen fights in round one before seeing his nineteenth opponent survive the opener only to be finished off in the second.

That kind of learn nothing KO streak was hardly perfect prep for a title shot, was it, but that’s what came next. Valero took on Vicente Mosquera for the WBA super featherweight crown in Panama City, Mosquera’s home town. On paper it was a big jump in class, and a tough ask in hostile territory, but you wouldn’t have known from the way the Venezuelan terror went about his business in the usual manner, steaming forward and chopping down the champion twice in round one.

He didn’t finish him, though, and come round three and it was Edwin Valero on the floor, for the first time in his career. When these knockout artists have the roles reversed like that it usually spells the end, or the beginning of the end, but that’s where a man like Valero differs from a Victor Oganov.

Edwin survived the shock, got on with the job, and when the ref moved in to rescue a beaten Mosquera in the tenth round all the cards had Valero well ahead. He has a bit more to his game than just that withering power.

Victor Oganov’s amateur record mirrors his pro log. All his wins in a vest came via stoppage. Sounds impressive but what it actually means is he was beaten by everybody who could absorb or evade his punches.

Edwin Valero won over half his amateur bouts inside schedule but won plenty by decision too. He’s never going to fancy dan his way through a top level fight or out box a boxer, but he’s rounded enough not to be totally embarrassed by superior skilled men. At that, and with his heavy hands, you’d have to give him some sort of chance against anybody, even in a red hot division.

If punch power were the only thing he had, though, Valero would be easy meat for the likes of Pacquiao, Barrera, Marquez, and Guzman.