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He is the reigning WBC heavyweight champion, he has the highest knockout percentage in heavyweight boxing history and he has a huge fight lined up on September 10 against Tomasz Adamek; but does anyone really care about Vitali Klitschko?
The heavyweight division has been losing its staple as the most exciting and dangerous brand of boxing. Not since the days that Mike Tyson was storming through the division have boxing fans and television networks cared enough to showcase the heavyweight product.
Not HBO nor Showtime has paid much attention to Vitali Klitschko or his brother Wladimir Klitschko. The perception seems to be that contemporary heavyweight fighters have no personalities and are not as skilled as heavyweight fighters of a few years ago; the likes of George Foreman, Mike Tyson and even Lennox Lewis.
In fact, Vitali Klitschko’s last defeat in the ring came at the hands of Lennox Lewis in 2003.
While the heavyweight division seems to have stumbled out of favor with boxing fans, the welter and light middle divisions are striving and taking over as boxing’s premier product.
Among them, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Sergio Martinez, Amir Khan and Miguel Cotto to name a few; are the central figures in boxing that fans relate to and the names that sell pay-per-view events.
It’s no big secret that boxing is going through a dark age, in which its losing ground to UFC and other MMA sports. The welterweight and light middleweight fighters that inhabit boxing’s world are the only big draw left in the sport and if the Pacquiao vs. Mayweather Jr. fight does not happen than I’m afraid that boxing will certainly not be saved with a Vitali Klitschko vs. Wladimir Klitschko fight.
The question then remains, are the fighters in the heavyweight division (like Vitali Klitschko), the reason why it’s a dying division?
That’s a question that only you (the readers, the boxing fans) can answer.
