Boxing sure has fallen on hard times as of late. I don’t think any average American can name even one of the four heavyweight champions. This might be due to the fact that none of them are American. All of the current champions are Eastern European. The most freakish of these champions is Nikolai Valuev.
Nikolai is 7’0� tall and weighs in at 320 lbs. He is by far the tallest and heaviest champion in history. He looks like a Cro-Magnon man and has a head like a Volkswagen. He is also covered in sweaty body hair which must make it very pleasant for his opponents to be in a clench with him.
Valuev recently had his first fight in America where he defeated American Monte Brown to defend his title.
The biggest question though was can he really fight or is he more of a side show attraction. The answer is he has some boxing skills, but mostly he is a curiosity. He basically one the fight because by the 11
th round Monte Brown was so tired for jumping up to hit him that he basically just couldn’t fight anymore. Valuev is so freaking huge that it is almost impossible to hurt him. His head is like 90% bone and you practically have to swing a foot up to hit him.
Valuev represents the current state of boxing which is more about marketability than champions with actual boxing ability. Gone are the days of champions like Muhammad Ali, Joe Lewis or even Mike Tyson. Boxing has so much competition these days from other competitive fighting sports like Ultimate Fighting and K1 that they have to have champions like Valuev to generate interest. Valuev definitely is interesting to watch but he represents the decline of the traditional heavyweight champion.
