Inoculated Klitscho will still take no chances

AMERICA AT LARGE:Truth be known, Klitschko-Chagaev figures to be a much more competitive match up than Klitschko-Haye would have been, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

ON SUNDAY in the usually sleepy village of Canastota, New York, Lennox Lewis will be formally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and while some might quibble with the credentials for immortality of Brian Mitchell and Orlando Canizales, who will also be installed this weekend, the Class of 2009 will be further distinguished by a trio of non-participants on hand that day – Hugh McIlvanney, the “Boxing Bard of Scotland”, long-time matchmaker and publicist Bobby Goodman, and Larry Merchant, whose 30-year career as an HBO analyst has lasted even longer than his previous incarnation as a top-flight sports columnist for the New York Post and Philadelphia Daily News.

Lewis has been retired for five years now, and while he might have been under-appreciated in his day, his stature has been enhanced with each passing year by the state into which the heavyweights have fallen in his absence. Each of the three blips on his 45-bout professional ledger – surprise knockouts by Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman and a highly dubious draw with Evander Holyfield in the first of their two 1999 meetings – was avenged by a convincing win in a rematch, and, Lewis bowed out after, as he had promised he would, “ridding the division of its last misfits”: in his last three fights Lewis knocked out, in order, Rahman and Mike Tyson, and stopped Viltali Klitschko.

Lewis’ win over Holyfield in Las Vegas a decade ago represented the last time three of the world’s four recognised titles were on offer in the same fight. It has taken 10 years, but three championships will also be up for grabs a week from Saturday in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, when Wladimir Klitscho, who owns the WBO and IBF titles, faces Ruslan Chagaev, the Uzbeki who holds a WBA version of the heavyweight crown, before 60,000 at the home of the Bundesliga’s FC Schalke 04 club.

But if Lewis (or, for that matter, Merchant) plan to attend the bout, it looks as if they’ll have to buy their own tickets. HBO, which had contracted to show Klitschko v David Haye on June 20th, elected to pass on the bout once Chagaev became the opponent, leaving lesser US broadcast outlets to scramble for the right to televise the June 20th unification fight.

HBO had been keen enough to show Klitschko v Haye. Even though the former cruiserweight champion has yet to establish any solid heavyweight credentials, American TV audiences are suckers for accomplished trash-talkers, and Haye had obligingly talked a good fight, and strutted about wearing a T-shirt depicting himself posed with the decapitated heads of the Brothers Klitschko.

Faced with the prospect of showing an off-hours fight between natives of the Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the network’s ardour cooled considerably, and the ink wasn’t even dry on the Klitschko-Chagaev contract when HBO sports president Ross Greenburg confirmed his lack of interest. Of course, explaining to a non-boxing audience the circumstances which led to Chagaev’s sudden availability might have taken up more television time than the fight itself. It was Andy Lee, who along with fellow Emanuel Steward disciple Johnathon Banks has been training with Wlad the Inhaler in the Tyrolean Alps, who first alerted us to the arrangement for Chagaev to face Klitschko on Saturday week.

Chagaev was supposed to have fought Nikolay Valuev, the 7ft Russian giant, in Helsinki, 12 days ago, but that bout fell apart after the Friday night weigh-in when Chagaev’s blood test revealed lingering traces of the antigens for Hepatitis B which has plagued his career for the past several years. The Uzbeki had first tested positive for the Hep B virus in 2006, and had twice postponed rematches with Valuev, along with a 2007 bout against then-WBO champion Sultan Ibragimov, on medical grounds.

Chagaev’s German promoters had cried “foul” over the medical disqualification, pointing out that their man’s blood levels were precisely what they had been for a fight in Germany earlier this year.

This was true enough. Germany’s medical requirements differ from those in Finland and Britain and the US and, for that matter, most of the civilised world, and while the danger of transmission was relatively slight, it remained a possibility. Even after Chagaev’s positive test, Valuev was given the option of going through with the fight under two conditions – that he be inoculated against the Hep B virus, and that he sign a waiver indemnifying the bout’s promoters should he somehow become infected. Valuev, reasoning that getting into the ring with an opponent diagnosed with something he needed to be inoculated against, understandably declined.

Since Klitschko had already been inoculated (a precaution taken, said Wlad’s spokesman Berndt Bonte, because his man travels so widely around the world) and since it would take place in a jurisdiction with comparatively relaxed standards, Chagaev’s antigen levels posed no barrier to the stitched-together fight.

The Ring magazine, which fancies itself a fifth world sanctioning body, has also announced it will award its belt to the Klitschko-Chagaev winner. Bonte pronounced Wladimir “absolutely thrilled” over this development, “especially because the last one to hold that title was his brother Vitali”, Bonte told American fight scribe Michael Rosenthal.

Since Wladimir Klitschko is currently ranked number one and Vitali number two, and since the brothers have long since declared that they would never face one another, a win by his younger brother would have the effect of permanently freezing Vitali out of The Ring picture.

Truth be known, Klitschko-Chagaev figures to be a much more competitive match-up than Klitschko-Haye would have been. Chagaev is a former world amateur champion and is undefeated in 26 pro bouts, owning wins over both Valuev and former champion John Ruiz.

Moreover, Chagaev is left-handed. It has been six years since Wladimir Klitschko last faced a big-puncher of the sinister persuasion, and on that occasion he was knocked silly by Corrie Sanders, a rather ordinary South African.

Wladimir has, of course, fought left-handers since – notably Ibragimov, Chris Byrd, and most recently, Tony Thompson – and, having learned from past mistakes has revised his technique. These days he takes few chances against southpaws. Now he just bores them to death.