NEW YORK --- The last time two champions met in the ring at Madison Square Garden to unify the heavyweight titles, they didn’t. Which is one reason that, even though the IBF is involved, you probably won’t see Eugenia Williams sitting in a judge’s chair on February 23. Nearly nine years after Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield did not unify the titles in New York, and eight and a half years after they did, in Las Vegas later in 1999, two reigning heavyweight belt-holders have agreed to fight one another. In this day and age of boxing, that qualifies as hard news.
Champions Wladimir Klitschko (IBF) and Sultan Ibragimov (WBO) and their multinational array of promoters convened at the Manhattan chapter of the Hard Rock Café Tuesday to formally announce February’s title unification at the Mecca of Boxing.
The Hard Rock is located ten blocks north of Madison Square Garden and eight blocks west of the United Nations. The promoters might have done worse than to hold Tuesday’s festivities at the latter location – or at the very least, borrowed a translator or two from the UN.
Dr. Klitschko, for instance, wasted little time in thanking his audience “for making this fight bigger than it is.”
And he later, in what one guesses was supposed to be a compliment, described his opponent by noting that “he is similar with Chris Byrd, but Bird don’t make such a good footwork as Ibragimov.”
As are the two non-participating heavyweight champions (Oleg Maskaev and Ruslan Chagaev), Klitschko and Ibragimov are both products of the old Soviet Union. (As a rule, Ukrainians (of which Wlad is one) and Russians (Sultan) don’t have much use for one another. Klitschko is promoted by his own company (K2), while Ibragimov is backed by the Seminole Nation of Florida.
The resurgence of the latter over the past decade has seen them parlay a bingo parlor on tribal land to a casino empire and, more recently, the acquisition of the entire Hard Rock chain, including Tuesday’s venue in Times Square.
(“If that’s what it takes for us to buy back New York, that’s what we’ll do – one hamburger at a time,” said Seminole spokeswoman Sally Tommie.)
Klitschko is 49-3 and widely regarded as the best of the current crop of heavyweight claimants, but at the New York gathering promoters distributed a press kit in which it was noted that “Klitschko won the gold medal in the super heavyweight division at the 1996 Olympic Games, becoming the first white gold medalist in the highest weight class in 26 years.”
We must assume that the observation was the product of the Germans, but just to ensure that Wlad’s camp didn’t have a monopoly on political incorrectness, Ibragimov manager Boris Grinberg later congratulated the participants for being “two real white gentlemen.”
Sallie Tommie’s reaction to that remains unrecorded.
And Tuesday’s most glaring faux pas wasn’t even verbal in nature. Klitschko announced a scheme in which he plans to conduct an online auction through which fans’ names (at $199 a pop) can be inscribed on the robe he will wear into the ring on Feb. 23, with the proceeds going to the sports-oriented Laureus Foundation. To demonstrate, Wladimir donned the actual robe, whose prominent logo revealed that it had been manufactured by Hugo Boss, otherwise notorious as the former official outfitter to both the Waffen S.S. and the Hitler Youth.
In response to an interrogatory from a veteran scribe in the audience, Klitschko pointed out, correctly, that while his fight with Ibragimov is a unification fight, there is no pretense that it will produce an undisputed champion.
“But of course I would eventually like to unify all of the belts,” said Wlad.
Leon Margules, the lawyer who represents Seminole Warriors Boxing, hastened to note that “the other guys don’t want to play. These do guys do.”
Margules recalled that shortly after Ibragimov won the WBO title from Shannon Briggs back in June he had reached out to Klitschko, only to be informed that the IBF champion was injured and wouldn’t be available until early 2008, at which point he had sought out and signed an October match with WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev.
Chagaev withdrew after being afflicted with a mysterious illness his handlers still won’t talk about and was replaced by Holyfield.
“Chagaev is still under medical suspension,” pointed out Margules, “and you can’t make a fight with the WBC champion because every time you turn around Jose Sulaiman has added another eliminator. It will be at least two years before the WBC champion can fight anybody else.”
(Three weeks before Klitschko-Ibragimov, WBC champ Oleg Maskaev is supposed to meet “interim” champion Samuel Peter, with the winner of that one obligated to face Wladimir’s brother Vitaly, the “emeritus” champion.)
Although both sides expressed happiness with the New York venue, the Garden was actually a compromise site.
“Financially, there were more attractive venues,” said K2’s Tom Loeffler. “Warriors originally proposed having the fight in Moscow, and, Wladimir does very well in Germany, but we agreed that the fight belongs here.”
To which Grinberg, paraphrasing Don King, added “Only in America!”
No details on the supporting acts were announced Tuesday, but it is understood that should Irish middleweight John Duddy, a big New York ticket-seller, win his fight against Howard Eastman in Belfast Saturday night (and emerge from the bout without significant damage), he will be offered a prominent spot on the live undercard.
HBO has lined up an even bigger name for the televised undercard -- Joe Louis. The network plans to lead into the Klitschko-Ibragimov broadcast by premiering its new documentary, JOE LOUIS: AMERICAN HERO, at 8 pm.
Following Tuesday’s gathering in New York, the combatants both headed overseas – Ibragamov to Moscow, Klitschko to Germany, where they will likely remain for the next few weeks. Then when they return after Christmas, they will prepare in Florida training camps less than an hour’s drive removed from one another. Dr. Steelhammer will train in Palm Beach, Ibragimov at his Fort Lauderdale gym.
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