On Oct. 16, 2010, at the mammoth O2 World Arena in Hamburg, Brooklyn-born heavyweight Shannon Briggs was literally battered from one corner of the ring to the other, but he still managed to go the distance with WBC Champion Vitali Klitschko.
At the end, Briggs’ deeply bruised eyes, bleeding nose and swollen lips provided a fleeting glimpse of what a difficult struggle it had been for him.
Only two other men had gone the full twelve with Klitschko, who has now stopped 38 of the 41 men he’s defeated. As was the case in his two previous distance bouts, Klitschko won every round on the official scorecards against Briggs.
In fact, one of Briggs’ corner men was so proud that his fighter simply heard the final bell he rushed into the ring and lifted the American’s hand in victory.
That’s what it’s come to.
Granted, there have been dominant heavyweight champions before, just as there have been outspoken challengers. Leading up to the match, Briggs told anyone who would listen that he was the man who would retire Vitali Klitschko. Briggs talked such a good game, he even had Klitschko’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, a little worried.
“Briggs will be very dangerous in the first three rounds,” Steward admitted to reporters during the week leading up to the match. “I personally talked to Vitali about it. He can’t relax as he allowed himself to do in bouts against (Albert) Sosnowski and Samuel Peter. I believe that it’ll be the most difficult fight in Vitali’s career.”
It wasn’t.
Norman Mailer: 'Heavyweights the Most Lunatic of Prizefighters'
Once the fight began, Briggs joined the long list of heavyweight challengers who managed to get a championship fight, only to realize once there that they were about to be demolished by the best fighter on the planet. When this happens, the only question is whether the overmatched boxer will willingly accept his beating, as he’s being paid to do, or panic and do something crazy.
What fans learned that October evening was, despite his gaudy, enhanced physique and bleached-blonde locks, Shannon Briggs’ fighting heart is apparently real. He stood his ground and took his beating like a man. That’s easier said than done.
In a collection of boxing essays published in 1988 titled “Reading the Fights,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer wrote about the mental strain fighters like Briggs endure when they find themselves in the ring attempting to win the heavyweight championship.
“Heavyweights are almost always the most lunatic of prizefighters,” Mailer said. “The closer a heavyweight comes to a championship, the more natural it is for him to be a little bit insane, secretly insane, for the heavyweight champion of the world is either the toughest man in the world or he is not, but there is a real possibility he is. The best lightweight in the world knows that an unranked middleweight can defeat him on most nights, and the best middleweight in the world will kill him every night. But the heavyweights never have such simple sanity.”
One only has to look at recent heavyweight history to realize Mailer was correct.
There was Andrew Golota, the supremely talented Polish heavyweight, who suffered a panic attack on his way to the arena to face Lennox Lewis for the championship and had to be talked into leaving his dressing room. Once in the ring, Golota was dispatched in roughly 95 seconds. Chicago brawler Oliver McCall, who entered the ring weeping uncontrollably before his first fight with Lewis and suffered a nervous breakdown in ring during their rematch. Britain’s Henry Akinwande, who went undefeated in 33 pro bouts over eight years before qualifying for a title shot, and then wasted the opportunity by grabbing, clinching, holding and simply refusing to fight. Referee Mills Lane finally ended Akinwande’s misery when he disqualified the fearful challenger before the end of the fifth round.
And let’s not forget Mike Tyson, the poster child for anti-social behavior, who threatened to eat Lewis’ children and crush their testicles so “they could feel his pain” before his 2002 world title challenge. After being beaten to a pulp by Lewis and left in a bloody heap on the canvas, a “tamed” Tyson got up and thanked Lewis for the opportunity, wiped a drop of blood from Lewis’ cheek while Lennox was conducting a post-fight interview and quietly left the arena.
How Do Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko Compare with Muhammad Ali?
For their part, the Klitschkos have never exhibited this type of crazed or manic behavior in public.
Then again, the brothers have been favored to win in all but one of the 101 professional fights they’ve competed in, which either says a lot for their matchmaking skills or the poor quality of the rest of the division. Either way, it’s much easier to “hold it together” psychologically when you know you are far and away better than the man standing opposite you in the ring.
As a result, neither brother has been the overwhelming underdog and overcame the odds to win, like Muhammad Ali did when he challenged Sonny Liston and George Foreman for the title. The only time either was the underdog in a match was when Vitali faced Lennox Lewis, and the elder Klitschko’s face was cut to ribbons and the fight stopped after six rounds.
If Vitali Klitschko faced his brother, Wladimir, for the undisputed championship, could either Klitschko hold it together and score the greatest win of his career? Or would one (or both) crumble mentally like Golota, McCall and Akinwande?
To avoid ever having to answer the question, the brothers hatched the plan to rule the division together. Along the way, they took the proclamation made famous by the great bare-knuckle champ John L. Sullivan – “I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the house” – and they’ve flipped it on its head.
Instead of challenging one and all, the Klitschkos stand side-by-side, look down at the rest of the division and put the onus on them by saying: “If ‘you’ want to be the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the house, you’ll have to beat both of us.” They typically follow that up by insisting all challengers agree in writing to a series of rematches against one or both brothers should the “unthinkable” happen and an upset (or two) occurs.
It’s a strategy that has provided cover for each brother’s inadequacies in the ring. Consider Wladimir never had to prove he learned from the mistakes he made in his knockout loss to Corrie Sanders because Vitali beat up and essentially retired the South African in Sanders’ next fight. From the Klitschko brothers’ perspective, revenge was meted out. The family’s honor redeemed. And both could move on.
But it’s a strategy that is also directly responsible for the confusion HBO executive Ross Greenburg alluded to when he said American viewers have trouble differentiating between the brothers. It’s also resulted in the Klitschkos being saddled with the moniker “the two-headed monster.”
More importantly, it’s left the sport without an undisputed champion for the better part of a decade. But there is evidence that this “shared” strategy is beginning to weigh on both brothers, and maybe some of the “insanity” Mailer described is beginning to manifest itself.
David Haye Has a Big Mouth
With his career winding down and the grey hair around his ears and temples becoming more pronounced, 39-year-old Vitali Klitschko seems to be worrying more about his legacy.
As he did prior to defending against Albert Sosnowski earlier this year, Vitali made it a point to tell the media before the Briggs match that “his” WBC title is the same title that was held by Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Muhammad Ali – thereby making the subtle case that his claim to the championship, unlike his brother’s, has real merit.
Also, both siblings have been calling out the reigning World Boxing Association (WBA) champion David Haye, the consensus number-three heavyweight in the world, who defeated Nicolay Valuev for that title in 2009. Unfortunately, now that Haye has a belt of his own, he seems content to ignore their public challenges and defend against lesser men while earning a sizable fortune on his own.
“David Haye is just a chicken, to be honest,” Vitali said before the Briggs match. “He’s got a big mouth, but nothing more. He’s smart enough to understand that if David Haye made the contract with Vitali or Wladimir Klitschko, and he got inside the ring with either one of us, then it would be the finish of his boxing career.”
Regardless, boxing fans have already seen both brothers beat the “third-best” heavyweight when each won recognition from Ring Magazine. Those wins solved nothing.
The sport desperately needs one World Heavyweight Champion and getting there doesn’t require the assistance of Ring Magazine or David Haye. We simply need the top two heavyweights in the sport – Wladimir Klitschko and Vitali Klitschko – to muster up the courage to fight.
When Muhammad Ali regained his boxing license in 1970 and he and Joe Frazier were both considered the champion, within months of Ali’s return, he and Frazier were in the ring at Madison Square Garden engaging in the Fight of the Century. They didn’t agree to share the title and put the responsibility on a lesser fighter like Buster Mathis or Jerry Quarry to beat them both and restore order to the sport.
After all, the Heavyweight Champion of the World is supposed to be able to defeat every man on the planet. And, as Mailer pointed out, you either are that man or you are not.
Now is the time for one of the Klitschkos to finally step up and prove he is that man … and for one to realize he is not.
Story begins here: Vitali or Wladimir: Which Klitschko is the Real Champion? (Part 1)
