By Norm Frauenheim-
It’s time for a change and he knew it. As always, Wladmir Klitschko did the right thing.
That’s how he’ll be remembered in the writing and rewriting of heavyweight history. Klitschko, who retired Thursday, was neither dramatic nor sensational. He was just righteous in a reliable sort of way at a time when the old flagship division had begun to look like a sunken relic beneath the waves of some bygone battle.
When it appeared as if the heavyweights were vanishing, there was always Klitschko winning, setting records, or staging a comeback. He was a pillar, a significant caretaker of a division that maybe can now move back on to a relevant stage with Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder. We’ll see.
Whatever happens, Klitschko gave them and the sport that chance with his long, predictable reign at the top of the division.
Will he go down as an all-time heavyweight? Tough to say. We know the numbers, all record-book quality, yet also compiled against collection of nobodies in a division that was at the bottom of a historical decline. We’ll never really know how good he was, mostly because of the business itself.
Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis were the best in the division when Klitschko won his belt, yet he never fought either. Blame the business. It suffered for that. So will Klitschko’s ring legacy.
Think of it this way: Put Klitschko into a fantasy tournament with some of history’s greatest heavyweights. Here’s just one Sweet 16: Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Jersey Joe Walcott, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Larry Holmes, Ezzard Charles, a young Mike Tyson, Holyfield and Lewis. Add Klitschko and you’ve got 16. Put them in brackets. Match them any way you like. Would Klitschko get out of the first round? I’m skeptical. Had he fought Holyfield and/or Lewis, we’d have a better guess.
His nine-year run as the champ, including 18 successive title defenses, is an amazing stat. But boxing isn’t baseball. It’s measured by more intangibles. One punch can knock out all of the analytics. In judging Klitschko, intangibles matter. They did – they do – with Ali.
Foreman has his own take on the classic, cross-generational argument about whom was the greatest: Louis or Ali? Foreman, who lost to Ali in the legendary Rumble in the Jungle, argues that Louis was a greater fighter than Ali. But, he says, Ali was a greater man.
It’s impossible to separate Ali’s stand against the Viet Nam War and his fight for civil rights from his heavyweight era. They are one and the same. Apply the same standard to Klitschko. He has stood up for the Ukraine against Russia alongside his brother and ex-heavyweight champ, Vitali. In retirement, the guess is that he will take on more political fights en behalf his country and what he thinks is right, which is what will always keep him among history’s greats.
