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I know we’ve heard it all before, but I can’t get over just how bad the state of the Heavyweight division is nowadays. The fact that three former Middleweights (Roy Jones, James Toney, and Chris Byrd) were able to move up in weight and capture a belt makes me shake my head. The division is still up for grabs in more ways than one, and I’ll try to illustrate that as best I can.
WBO Champion Lamon Brewster is a fighter who has been making great waves of late. I have had the pleasure of knowing Lamon for several years now and I can tell you he is truly one of the good guys in the sport. His blowout over Andrew Golota was one of last year’s best knockouts and he is a far cry from the guy who was out boxed by Cliff Etienne and Charles Shufford. Brewster’s skills might not be elite but he has great heart and he will give anyone a fight.
Chris Byrd is the current IBF Champion and he is also another one of the good ones to look out for in the game. Chris is a class act and I got the chance to know him when I was fighting in the amateurs with him. Style wise, Chris is facing a big dilemma however. At his best he is a counterpuncher who looks to outclass his opponents and it doesn’t always make for the most exciting of fights. When Byrd has stepped up and shown a willingness to exchange and make things entertaining, he has also left his defense on the shelf and has been vulnerable to an opponent’s incoming. Currently Chris is sorting out some ‘issues’ with his promoter Don King, and you have to wonder if his time has passed him by in some ways.
New WBA Champion Nikolai Valuev is someone who I can’t comment on too much. The fact that he beat John Ruiz shows that he isn’t terrible, but at 7’ 0" and weighing well over 300 pounds, you have to wonder if it was his height and overall size that won him the fight, and not his skills. He’s going to defend his belt this April in Germany and after that it would be nice to see him come to the States to give American fans a glimpse of what he’s got.
The man who is head and shoulders above everyone else in skills is James ‘Lights Out’ Toney. James is a craftsman and the only things that I could see holding him back would be his size and perhaps his age. Even when he was a Middleweight, James would walk around at close to 200 pounds, so it never surprised me that he had success at Heavyweight.
Toney is set to face Hasim Rahman on March 18th and I really feel that James is going to take Hasim to school. I have never been that impressed with Hasim Rahman and I really don’t feel that he can fight. He has some power and a nice jab, but besides that he doesn’t have a lot of tools to work with. I think Toney will pick him apart.
Outside of the champions we have a group of contenders that could all conceivably come away with a belt sometime this year. Former WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko leads the pack due to his edge in skills, previous experience as a champion, and overall size and reach. Klitschko has a fight coming up March 25th in Germany and it looks like he’ll be fighting either Chris Byrd or Lamon Brewster, two men he has faced before.
I would group fighters such as Samuel Peter, Calvin Brock, and Sultan Ibragimov together because they all have a chance at coming up big. In his loss to Klitschko, Peter showed his heart was on a world class level and he will always be a punch away from ending any fight. Both Brock and Ibragimov are somewhat smaller fighters who make up for it with skills that are more dynamic than most Heavyweights. Brock showed in his win against Jameel McCline last year that he isn’t afraid to get down and dirty while Ibragimov is coming off of a big win over Lance Whitaker.
The Heavyweights are in a dreadful state but if anything it’s nice knowing that the playing field is even in a lot of ways, because it could make for some good fights. The skills, heart, talent, size, and overall ability are all there, it’s just that those characteristics don’t lie with one man and are instead spread out over a group of fighters. Here’s hoping that in 2006 we’ll get to see who can separate himself from the rest of the pack. |
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By Jeff Mayweather (January 6, 2006)
