By Norm Frauenheim –
Wladimir Klitschko’s return to America coincides with talks that are holding a sport hostage all over again. The heavyweight’s April 25 bout with Bryant Jennings at New York’s Madison Square Garden arrives in time to take attention off the paralysis-by-analysis of you-know-what.
It’s impossible to know what’s happening, or who’s to blame, or if the reported talks are fact, fantasy or futility.
It’s also hard to know whether frustration will lead to further erosion in the pay-per-view numbers if Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. does not happen. Renewed speculation and anticipation are symptoms. But of what? An imminent backlash? The cancer is back? Or resiliency in a sport that outlives its obituaries?
There’s no safe answer here, but Klitschko’s appearance Wednesday at a news conference in New York offered hope and certainty to what has otherwise been an exercise in exasperation. The Pacquaio-Mayweather tease could continue for another three weeks and that’s if we’re lucky. The first Mayweather-Marcos Maidana fight last May wasn’t announced until Feb. 24.
The only thing anybody knows for sure at this point is that Mayweather-Pacquiao won’t happen in Australia, which denied Mayweather a visa on Wednesday.
In Klitschko, however, there’s reliability in an intriguing pursuit of what has become today’s most over-used word: Legacy. Mayweather advertises it with TBE, The Best Ever, on shorts and caps. If he never fights Pacquiao, will an asterisk be attached to the acronym?
Meanwhile, Klitschko is fighting for his place in history with a steady, patient career. Too patient, too steady for some. Nevertheless, he is closing in on Joe Louis’ reign of eleven successive years as the heavyweight champ. It’s a record that would allow him to be mentioned alongside others in the TBE debate. There’s more than one and there always will be.
Klitschko knows that his longevity and record (63-3, 53 KOs) are generating comparisons to Louis, Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes.
“I hear this once in awhile,’’ he said. “…I don’t want to put myself in line with those legends. I respect and love them. I cannot put myself with others. You can do it, but it’s not my job.”
It’s an ambitious job, part political and unmistakably dangerous for a fighter who will be 39 years old on March 25. It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that he’s back in the U.S. for his first fight in seven years. He’s in the country and city that has produced so many of the best moments in the heavyweight division’s fabled history.
“It’s kind of incredible to me to think that I’m coming back now as the champion and still doing this,” he said. “Fortunately, knock on wood, I don’t feel my age. I’ll be 39 by the time we fight but I don’t feel that way. I feel good and I want to show the people here in the U.S. how far I’ve come since I was last here.”
Klitschko’s return to the U.S. market makes business sense, too. There are signs that of renewed interest in American-born heavyweights. The television audience for Alabama-born Deontay Wilder’s one-sided decision over Bermane Stiverne for the WBC’s slice of the title was a hit.
The Showtime-telecast of the bout drew an average audience of 1.24 million, fourth highest in the network’s history of non-PPV bouts. It was a surprise, because half of a crowd announce at about 8,400 at Las Vegas MGM Grand had freebies. But the Nielsen numbers said fans are curious about the outspoken, entertaining Wilder, the last American to win an Olympic medal – bronze in 2008.
It’s a number that says they’ll be back, maybe in larger numbers, for a PPV showdown with Klitschko, who has employed Wilder as a sparring partner.
“We need to do it and we have to do it,” Klitschko said of the Wilder possibility. “There is certainly a reason why I’m back here and why I’m fighting on U.S. television live on U.S. soil. (Wilder) is the most valuable opponent for me to fight and the price is the title that he has.
“The demand is here.”
Klitschko, at least, is taking a real step toward fulfilling it.
