BOXING/Heavyweight title fight: While it offers no guarantee of aesthetic fulfilment, this much is certain: when Wladimir Klitschko and Calvin Brock step into the ring at Madison Square Garden tonight, they will be the best-educated pair of heavyweights ever to contest a world championship, writes George Kimball in New York.

When James (Bonecrusher) Smith defeated Tim Witherspoon in the same arena 20 years ago he represented a boxing novelty - the first university graduate to hold a heavyweight title.

Two decades later, Dr Klitschko (his PhD was conferred by Kiev's University of Physical Science and Sports) finds himself facing Brock, whose degree from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte led to a position as a bank official before he represented (albeit briefly) the US at the 2000 Olympic Games.

Brock was eliminated in the first round at Sydney. (Four years earlier, in Atlanta, Klitschko had won the superheavyweight gold medal.) And while Brock has defeated 29 professional opponents without losing, there is little about the level of his prior competition to suggest he belongs in the same ring as the Ukraine-born champion.

Indeed, when pressed on the matter, the champion, who fights under the nom de guerre "Dr Steelhammer", concedes that Brock's principal qualification for tonight's challenge was the fact he is unencumbered by contractual ties to the promoter who controls the other three versions of the heavyweight title.

"When you start talking about sport and politics, there are many fighters out there, but the negotiations are complicated by conflicts with Don King," explained Dr Klitschko. "Brock is not with Don King. He is a strong boxer, but you can judge better than most if he is good enough to challenge for the championship."

Until Shannon Briggs knocked Sergei Liakhovich out of the ring with seconds remaining in their Phoenix fight last weekend to win the WBO title, all four heavyweight belts were in the possession of former Soviet boxers - Klitschko (IBF), Liakhovich, Nikolay Valuev (WBA), and Oleg Maskaev (WBC).

In terms of boxing skills, Klitschko is easily the most polished of that quartet, and at 6ft 6in and 240lb would until recently have been described as a large heavyweight. (He is utterly dwarfed by the ungainly Valuev, who stands 7 feet tall and weighs 320 pounds.)

Although he boxed for Ukraine in the Olympics, Klitschko is a product of the old USSR system. The cosmopolitan son of a peripatetic Soviet air force colonel, he was born in Kazakhstan (older, and slightly larger, brother Vitali was born in Kyrgyzstan), spent most of his early pro career boxing in Germany, and maintains residences in Hamburg and Los Angeles.

Vitali Klitschko never got to the Olympics (he was dismissed from the Ukrainian team after testing positive for steroids), but for a time was considered the better pro of the two.

Vitali won WBO (1999) and WBC (2004) titles before persistent injuries led to his retirement from the ring last year, while Wladimir held the WBO title from 2000-2003 prior to acquiring his current championship, which he won with a seventh-round stoppage of Chris Byrd in Mannheim this past April.

Indeed, when both were active the brothers appeared to take turns avenging one another's defeats: after Vitali was dethroned when he quit against Byrd in 2000, Wladimir took up the cudgel and beat Byrd for the WBO title later that year.

After Wladimir was ignominiously knocked out by Corrie Sanders in 2003, Vitali stepped in and beat Sanders for the WBC title. Maintaining the family honour was important enough that in 2001 Vitali even chased down Ross Puritty, the journeyman who stopped Wladimir in Kiev three years earlier.

When Wladimir registered his TKO of Byrd in Germany back in April, he proclaimed, "I am very happy to be world champion again, but this victory was not just for me. It was for the Klitschko brothers."

"The plan had always been that Vitali would hold two titles and I would hold two," explained Wladimir. (The brothers had vowed never to fight one another.) Now that Vitali is retired, it is up to me to win all four of them."

Like most boxing purists, he laments the Balkanisation of what was once considered the greatest prize in all of sport. "I don't consider myself the champion in the way Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, or Rocky Marciano were champions," said Klitschko. "We would all like to see one heavyweight champion. For the moment I am one of four, but I am in the game."

Prior to April's Byrd rematch, Klitschko had revived his career - and restored his sagging confidence - by climbing off the floor from three knockdowns to unanimously defeat Nigerian Samuel Peter.

It was his first bout against a significant opponent since he was soundly thrashed by Lamon Brewster in their 2004 title fight in Las Vegas - a performance so uncharacteristically bad Klitschko and his handlers claimed he had been drugged.

Indeed, the lingering doubts concern not Klitschko's talent or ability, but his resilience. Over the years he has proven a great front-runner when things are going his way, but his stamina - and possibly his mettle - remain open to question.

He ran out of gas and was stopped by Puritty, who knocked him down twice in the 10th; got knocked out by the light-punching Sanders; and was floundering all over the ring against Brewster, yet his Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward maintains, "I would put Wladimir up against any heavyweight in history - including Muhammad Ali. He has that rare combination of size, strength, and athleticism that he would give Ali trouble."

Steward is so eager to defend his man's reputation that he positively bristles at any mention of the Brewster bout.

"One f****** fight," exploded the trainer. "And that one was such an aberration there's no doubt in my mind he was drugged that night. You want to question his staying power? What about the Peter fight? He'd been down three times, but he came out and kicked Peter's ass in the 12th round when he had to."

On the other hand, said Steward, "I'm sure they're showing Brock tapes of those fights over and over, just to build up his confidence. That happens with every opponent Wladimir faces. I do just the opposite. I show him tapes of his opponent's best performances. I don't need to build up any false courage with him. He's always confident, and he should be."

"I have always had my confidence," says Klitschko with a shrug. "I have been successful, sure, but then I lost some fights. What happened, happened. You can't change the past. My biggest idols in boxing, Max Schmeling and Muhammad Ali, both lost and came back."

He doesn't plan to lose tonight, but Klitschko and his advisors have protected themselves well. The contract with Brock calls for an immediate rematch in Germany should he lose.

Assuming he wins, would he be willing to forego the usual niceties like return-bout clauses in order to meet King's array of champions to unify the title?

"I would prefer to address that after the fight," said Dr Klitschko with a disarming smile. "That is in the future, and if I don't beat Calvin Brock, I have no future."