Four belts and Not One Heavyweight Champion

The heavyweight division is still fighting with intentions on becoming a respectable and trend setting weight class. The stars of this division are the major belt holders, Vitali Klitschko (WBC), Chris Byrd (IBF), John Ruiz (WBA) and Lamon Brewster (WBO). All are consumed with being “the” heavyweight and for most of it’s history, the division

has been the home of one solid concrete champion after another with labels such as “The Greatest” to “The Baddest Man On The Planet”. The form of explaining why the heavyweight division is split into four champions is a topic not worth mentioning but years have passed and we have heard Don King’s plea of unifying the titles and having one world champion.

Heavyweight boxers have evolved into writers, sending out eloquent letters to the media in hopes of landing a title fight. Vitali Klitschko has made fight dates, walked away, made new fight dates, canceled and in the end, made another fight date. Clearly part of the redesign of the heavyweight division, the Klitschko brothers have left a gap there that is more apparent now. Ruiz, the king of sleeping pill matches, has successfully defended his titles and beat some of the qualified challengers out there. Even though James Toney is in the race of becoming a heavyweight champion, his win against Ruiz and then handing the belts back to “The Quiet Man” was as exciting as the Hasim Rahman and Monte Barrett friendship match. Just when you thought Ruiz was the champion in producing boredom, Rahman and Barrett decided to pay homage to Ruiz’s style. Byrd is in the shade of the division and yes, he is capable of placing some sparks into a weight class that is controlled by King’s matchmaking and not the fighters, but let us be direct, do we actually see Byrd as the unified heavyweight champion?

Brewster has that “fire in his eyes” attitude and he can clearly display his ambition in the reality of making the WBO belt a household name. And let us not forget the comebacks of Andrew Golota, Kirk Johnson, David Tua, Ray Mercer, and Shannon Briggs. You have every right to think we’re in a time machine and the year is set to 1995. I push for comebacks and I am the number one fan of age being a mental tool, you use it; or it uses you. Audley Harrison is designing his path on why he should be matched up against one of our four world heavyweight champions. Yeah right, like we are going to see a prominent promoter running with contracts in their left hand and a pen in their right hand, asking Audley to sign. He’s too dangerous and he shares the same potential as Samuel Peter, who also has the flare that Tua use to and might still have.

Does Peter have the same power as Mike Tyson? I wouldn’t extend my assertion in that direction, but we will see how much power he has when he faces Vitali. The heavyweight division will always be the box office draw for boxing and this mere fact has helped the division fall to the bottom of the ocean floor, talent wise. King’s business plan is a simple one, when it comes to heavyweight promotion. I can hear King retorting “Build a ring” and watch them come, shuffle the talent and ability margin to a low or medium performance level and we have any given Friday or Saturday heavyweight fight. It’s sports logic to understand that King’s ruling ways are content and controlling to say the least. If he does not have the power of presenting the next heavyweight he will play chess with the division and keep the belts away in a safe, located in his luxurious office. King does not see the next Tyson, Lewis or Holyfield in our current platoon of heavyweight fighters, so he is playing stock market leader with the division. He is going to wait patiently until that big talent and name enter into the heavyweight division. The riddle that is running away from me is the common right that we all want to share, calling our heavyweight champion by one name. A champion with all three, maybe four belts. Now, that is what I will truly call “Boxing Democracy”.

Contact Shaun Rico LaWhorn at filmmaking_mentality@msn.com