Can Valuev Make His Mark?

Standing seven feet tall and weighing 300 plus pounds, Russian heavyweight (I’ll say) Nicolai Valuev is the proverbial man mountain. Despite his obvious physical attractions, Valuev has remained somewhat of an unknown quantity. Although fighting mainly in his native Russia, and of late,

his adoptive Germany, he has also travelled well, winning fights in Australia, Japan, England and The United States; his resume reads like that of a journeyman but that he most certainly is not. Valuev appears to be a very mild mannered man, he looks almost embarrassed at fight time when announced to the crowd, and the most he can muster is a half-hearted raised fist whilst his eyes struggle to gaze anywhere but the floor.

For his size, Valuev is very athletic (this is attributed to his past endeavours as a basketball player and discus thrower), moving better than most individuals of his size, actually, he moves better than some of his smaller counterparts. He has a perfect record of forty-one wins from forty-one starts with thirty-one opponents finished off ahead of schedule, and whilst he understandably isn’t the fastest thing on two legs, he isn’t quite the lumbering giant that some would have you believe. Valuev does not strike me as being as powerful as his size would suggest, in fact any preconceived ideas anyone might have about a seven foot, 300-pound heavyweight are way off the mark. I would urge anyone who has not seen him in action to do so and then make your own judgements.

In his latest outing, Valuev gave a sound beating to American journeyman Clifford Etienne. Whilst Etienne is no world-beater, he can fight, and by the looks of him, he came into this one in very good shape, weighing a career low 217-pounds; he clearly thought he could out-speed Valuev and on occasions, it worked. Valuev kept him off balance with the jab and hit him with hurtful punches as he lunged in, although the finishing blow was to the back of the head, it was almost unavoidable with the way Etienne was bulling his way inside and it was not the first rabbit punch of the evening. Valuev had already put Etienne on the deck with regulation punches (as well as a couple of pushes) and, when the punch to the back of the head came Etienne sought solace on the canvass, a predictable yet decent performance.

Valuev has had his problems along the way, what with accusations of mafia involvement in his career, promoters attempting to sever his links to then manager Oleg Shalaev, and visa problems hampering his chances of more work across the Atlantic. But “The Beast from the East” moves on. At thirty-one-years-old you wouldn’t exactly say it’s panic stations, but there is only so long he can continue fighting the usual suspects. He currently holds top-ten rankings in all the major organizations lists, and is as high as five (possibly higher after James Toney’s situation is resolved) with the WBA who’s intercontinental title he holds. For many people, the heavyweight division is a joke; not only are we going through the depression that follows the exit of a dominant champion, we are also watching middleweights beat up titleholders and then fail anti-doping tests. With his size and appearance, Valuev resembles a Hollywood villain, but this is boxing and with the role of villain already filled many times over, could Valuev be a hero instead?

Matt Cotterell can be reached at mattcotterell@blueyonder.co.uk