Klitschko-Williams: A Preview.

Suddenly, everyone wants to know about Danny Williams. Hypocrisy is a harsh term to level at anyone, but it’s like the Arsenal football shirt paraded around by Williams in Las Vegas, with its precision creases prime evidence that it found its way to the fighters back straight from a courtesy package. No corporate suit would have dreamt of sending Williams such a gift while he languished in the doldrums of failure. Inevitably, it is a gift of dual significance: The sender gets some free publicity and Williams perhaps gets to feel for a moment that his country is behind him. They are not, and that is a real shame. Williams should have people and press in support of him, asking questions and uncovering exactly why the Nevada State Athletic Commission decided to become so pedantic about the condition of his facial hair and the possibility of them requesting Williams to shave incase his beard proves abrasive enough to break Klitschko’s delicate skin. Such behavior from the commission appears a little too over-protective of the champion who, to his credit, remains focused on the business of dealing with Williams as a fighter instead of poring over such petty issues. Besides, can anyone really envisage Williams spending weeks of his training camp devoted to how best to grate his beard against Klitschko’s face?

As a fighter and a public figure, Vitali Klitschko is straining to establish himself and has proven difficult to read. Boxing is not exempt from the sinister epidemic of steroid controversies that are rampaging throughout the sports world. The Williams camp opportunistically tested Klitschko’s temperament by reminding us that Klitschko had admitted his unknowing contact with a steroid when he was a young fighter. If found guilty of similar practices, female sprinter Marion Jones will be stripped of her Olympic medals while major league legend Barry Bonds causes baseball pundits to lose sleep over the question of his steroid abuse. Steroids degrade the legitimacy of achievement in sport and for a fighter such as Klitschko, already struggling for respect as the heir of an ailing division bereft of its linear champion, the allegations are hurtful indeed.

Klitschko appeared unmoved by the accusations, but how stable are the emotions bubbling beneath that calm exterior? Emotions already stirred to boiling by the scandalous election saga in his native Ukraine spawning nationwide unrest and violence in the streets. Klitschko is a scholar, a cultured individual atop a brutal sport where it does not pay to digress on the matter of civil conflict when in your immediate future there is a fighter coming to destroy your entire career. We wait to see whether Klitschko’s silence, his controlled demeanor mask a rage that will consume Williams in the fight or perhaps his distractions will offer Williams the opening to tear Klitschko’s world apart.

Many people have decided that Danny Williams does not deserve his chance at the heavyweight championship, but Williams can only do what all fighters must, beat whoever is in his way by any means necessary. Mike Tyson enjoyed a handful of chances he did not earn. All three of our heavyweight champions today hold titles they did not earn by beating the legitimate champion Lennox Lewis. Williams has a chance, one that he will not find again and I believe that every man deserves at least that once chance to prove themselves. If the media insists that Williams is an undeserving challenger, it is only appropriate to remember that Klitschko is quite the undeserving champion. Those overwhelmed in the furor of Klitschko’s ascent negate certain crucial facts. Firstly, Vitali Klitschko is not the world’s linear heavyweight champion. Lewis granted Klitschko a chance at two weeks notice, something no heavyweight, or indeed any champion would do today and Klitschko duly benefited. Secondly, Klitschko reaped the rewards of Kirk Johnson’s distaste for training and was able to score a high profile knockout of Johnson whose physical condition for that fight must rank among the worst in heavyweight history. Finally, Klitschko lucked out again when he met an undisciplined and intimidated version of Corrie Sanders in winning the title; Sanders however, even in his dilapidated physical state still managed to push Klitschko to the brink.

At thirty-three years of age, Klitschko has a lot to prove and little time to do so. Emanuel Steward would doubtlessly have gone to great pains in order to mold Klitschko into another one-two punch knockout artist; an approach that would seem to suit his giant frame but one that he rebuffed for his own style. However, words fail to describe what that style truly is. Citing Muhammad Ali as his childhood idol, it is easy to believe that Klitschko’s occasional forays into his hands down, loose-legged dance is some kind of homage to the great champion of yesteryear. With his impossibly wide stance and lacking a real jab to speak of that would offer him some true organization, Klitschko’s success incredibly supersedes his definite limitations. Positively, there is real strength in his body, good punch resistance and a respectable amount of power that seems to appreciate throughout his fights.

If Williams brings nothing else to the fight he is at least a fighter who stared obscurity in the face and escaped from its clutches determined to evade that ensnaring void. Steward offered his interpretation of the fight by stating that the Danny Williams he knew before Williams fought Tyson and the one he met afterwards are two entirely different beings. Whether this supposedly new and improved version of Williams was not just an aberration of his normal crisis-ridden self is one thing. The new Williams being enough to depose the Klitschko reign before it even gets started is altogether another matter. For Williams, there is no greater stage upon which to answer all of his detractors and before it is over, it could be the fight of the year or the disappointment of the year; such is heavyweight boxing in 2004.

Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jam2lis@sprint.ca