27.04.06 – By Troy Ondrizek: On April 23rd of 2005, on the under-card of ESPN’s first PPV event at Cesar’s Palace in Las Vegas; Calvin Brock (photo by Carlos Kalinchuk) put on his breakthrough performance by defeating top ten ranked heavyweight, Jameel McCline. It was the first time that Brock was the underdog in his entire career. Calvin was just coming off a solid victory over the perennial nut-case Clifford Etienne three months prior. Jameel had just let the IBF title slip away from him in his previous bout against Chris Byrd, a bout in which McCline dropped the cagey Byrd, and still lost. Calvin came in confident and predicted a victory and subsequent title shot afterwards.
It was for all purposes a very entertaining bout from ESPN. Jameel came out snapping his jab and clinching, a poor man’s version of what Lennox and Wladimir do. Brock would slip inside and work the body a little, and looked to counter on the outside. Brock was consistent early on, but I felt that Jameel fought better in spurts.. Now Teddy Atlas felt very differently, and seemed he was ready to anoint Brock as God of the Heavens, willing to carry the burdens of the heavyweight division. As the middle rounds came along, Brock came on stronger and started to carry the fight. Calvin kept putting the fight in McCline’s face and moving before the giant could fire back. Calvin started to get more and more confident, giving Jameel the opportunity to get back into the fight. Than it happened, McCline caught Brock in the inside flush with a left hook and sent the prodigy sprawling for a safe landing. Brock looked very dazed, but easily beat the count. Jameel came in for the kill, and that was his mistake. For it seemed that not only did McCline not really hurt Brock, but he pissed him off, and Calvin put a thorough whipping on McCline for the rest of the round. Important that comeback was for Brock, it turned a 10-8 into a 10-9 round, and instilled confidence in Brock, and seemed to frustrate McCline. Jameel basically fought off Brock for the last couple rounds, only to show up in spurts and tried to take the tenth round, but to no avail. Brock came out with an impressive unanimous decision victory that was made all the more important, that according to Atlas, Brock showed the heart of a champion by getting off the canvas and continuing with such desire. Frankly, a lot of people bought into Atlas’ rhetoric and Brock did show he could be something special.
Well that fight was a year ago, and Brock is still undefeated, but the question remains of whether or not Brock is a myth, or the truth that Atlas felt he was. Now Calvin has fought since last April, in fact he has fought three times, against people, well, we just don’t care about. Brock decided to follow up his coming out party against McCline with a bout versus Kenny Craven, and we bought it as him just keeping sharp. That’s fine, a tune-up fight isn’t a bad thing, and the fact that Brock was in negotiations with Vitali Klitschko for an August title fight was great news for Brock and the division; even though we thought Vitali was too hurt to fight Rahman, but was willing to fight Brock. That’s another story at a later date, but Brock was on his way, and then the WBC stomped the life out of Calvin’s title dreams. The WBC ruled that Vitali had to face his mandatory or risk being stripped of his title. The argument from the Klitschko and Brock camps was that Vitali could use Brock as a voluntary defense, and the winner takes on the winner of Rahman/Barrett. However, a champion only gets one voluntary defense, and Vitali used his to bully Danny Williams around the ring and beat the Brit to a pulp. So with the WBC’s ruling, Brock moved on to another less than stellar opponent.
In walks David Bostice. Bostice is a very durable journeyman; in fact he is set to fight Luan Krasniqi in less than a week. However, Bostice wasn’t always considered this worthy of an opponent. It took a fight with Calvin Brock to accomplish that. Calvin fought Bostice in November, Bostice fought Brock tooth and nail for an entire ten rounds. Both men were wobbled, but Brock was crisper and cleaner, and carried away a wide point’s victory; now the fight was closer than the margin suggested, but Calvin did just a little more each round to capture that fight. This performance by Bostice now has put him up there with the Friday Ahunanya’s and Lawrence Clay Bey’s of the boxing world.
Now maybe Brock didn’t perform up to par because he was side-tracked by the talk of a big fight involving Calvin and David Tua. That purposed fight garnered a large amount of attention from the boxing community, once again Calvin’s name was in the middle of a big buzz fight, but once again the fans were let down. The fight was said to be in January and even a date set, but all were lies, lies and disappointment. When Eastsideboxing was able to sit down and talk with Calvin about it, Brock stated that the fight didn’t happen because of money reasons. In fact that seemed to be the theme of the interview. So with another great opportunity gone for Brock to showcase his talent against top level opposition, we fans were treated to another fight for Calvin. This time he fought this past February against the formidable Zuri Lawrence.
Yes, the same Zuri Lawrence that defeated Jameel McCline just after Calvin did. The same Zuri Lawrence that in 35 career fights before his fight with Brock had never knocked an opponent out or even stopped them for any occasion. What a continuous step down in competition. Calvin had proposed fights with both Klitschko brothers, but Wladimir fell through because of money, imagine that, and Vitali because the WBC felt it wasn’t a legitimate title fight. Instead we got to see Calvin up against Kenny Craven and David Bostice. Than the David Tua debacle occurred, and we were privy to Brock and Lawrence fighting it out. The fight with Lawrence had to be Calvin’s worst fight to date. For nearly six rounds Calvin stood inches from Lawrence and was happy to attempt to throw the least amount of punches possible and still win the round. Calvin was sloppy and inaccurate. His footwork was so terrible, that he fell into the ropes after throwing a punch and missing on a few occasions. The immortal Emanuel Steward was a quest commentator, and during the fight Steward stated that he couldn’t tell who was the up and coming heavyweight contender, and who the unaccomplished journeyman was. That’s how bad Calvin was for nearly six rounds, and then with only seconds left in the sixth round, Calvin with a horrific left hook, put Lawrence unconscious before he fell to the canvas. Calvin made us forget momentarily how bad he looked the entire fight with that jaw dropping/breaking punch that ungracefully ended Zuri’s night.
So that takes us to the present. Calvin has followed up his most impressive career victory, with bouts against Craven, Bostice, and Lawrence. None of those names equate to champion contender status. Basically Calvin just threw away a year of his career. I don’t understand why some fighters do it, and why someone as old as Calvin (30) would waste a chance to put himself on top. Now Calvin does have a very important bout against a very dangerous fighter in Timor Ibragimov coming this June. Timor is cousins with Lance Whitaker conqueror Sultan Ibragimov. While Sultan is a little more explosive and powerful; Timor is superior to Sultan technically and has enough power to drop people like Shannon Briggs in sparring. If the Calvin Brock that showed up against Jameel McCline, shows up against Timor, than Calvin could win this fight off of his tenacity alone. However, if the Brock that showed up against Bostice and Lawrence stands in front of Ibragimov in June, than Timor will pick apart that fighter and end Calvin’s undefeated stretch. Calvin seems to fight to the level of his competition. That is a dangerous way to live on the heavyweight scene; for as soon as he underestimates someone like Timor, than Calvin will suffer a concussion and a devastating loss. I like how Brock fights, and the hope he gives some fans, but honestly I do see Timor pulling this victory out, but hey, I haven’t been doing so good in my predictions of late, so I leave that up to you. Anyways, let’s hope that if Calvin does win, that he doesn’t squander another chance to cement his claim as a legitimate fighter by fighting in meaningful bouts and winning a title down the road. Calvin can do it, but only if the money is right.