20.03.06 – By Bill Calogero: Comment-one: The Heavyweight Picture: Everyone thought that after Saturday night’s Hasim Rahman vs. James Toney Heavyweight Title fight, the Heavyweight division “picture” would become clearer. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Hasim Rahman has retained the WBC Heavyweight Title, which he was awarded when Vitali Klitschko retired, by his majority decision draw over James Toney. What this outcome has done to the overall picture of the Heavyweight division is, well nothing.
What we needed to happen was one of these two top-rated Heavyweights step up and give the Boxing World a Champion caliber performance, stake a solid claim to a piece of the Heavyweight picture and ultimately setup a Unification of the Heavyweight Title, which would return respect to the title of “World Heavyweight Champion.”
What we got was an overall sub-par performance, which has cleared up nothing. In the beginning of the fight, it was actually entertaining. Rahman used his superior jab and did land some power shots, while Toney showcased his defensive and counter-punching skills. What the fight developed into was a sad reminder of how boring the Heavyweight division is today.
It resembled what I call the “Dinosaur Era Of Boxing”, which took place during the early 1980’s. This was a time when we had slow-moving Champions like Tubbs, Witherspoon and Thomas roaming through the Heavyweight Division. It wasn’t until Mike Tyson came along and cleaned things up (he could have been the sports savior until his mind was invaded) and unified the Title. Love him or hate him, when he was the Heavyweight Champion Of The World, it meant something.
Now where do we go? They are already crying for the Rahman-Toney rematch. They of course are the Rahman and Toney camps. That’s the WBC’s piece of the picture. Over in the IBF, we have Chris Byrd defending his Title against Wladimir Klitschko on April 1st. On paper, this is a meaningful fight. The IBF, WBA and WBO all have Klitschko rated either number one or number two (for the record, the WBC doesn’t even have him in the top-ten…..??????). We have giant Nicolay Valuev as the WBA’s Champion. He won a questionable decision over the boring, action-less, John Ruiz, who just won’t go away, for one-fourth of the picture. Sadly enough, they are talking about this rematch as well.
For the final piece of the puzzle, we have the WBO’s Champion, Lamon Brewster. In my opinion, he is the best Heavyweight “Champion” of the mix. He is scheduled to fight Sergei Lyakhovich on April 1.
What does all this mean? Who knows! All I do know is that we HAVE to get these “Champions” to fight each other once and for all. We need to stop this madness and restore credibility to the Heavyweight Division. We need to once again have an Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. Once that happens, it will help bring credibility back to the sport of Boxing.
Bill Calogero, TheDailySports.com