Klitschko absorbs blow; poised to take on Chagaev?

Wladimir Klitschko, stunned by David Haye's injury, regrouped quickly and could face Ruslan Chagaev for RING title.

TIROL, Austria -- The BioHotel Stanglwirt is a stunning, rustic resort located 10 minutes from the world-class ski slopes of Kitzbuhel and 750 meters up the Austrian Alps under the shadow of the foreboding 4,000-meter Wilder Kaiser (Wild Emperor) mountains. The turf-covered roofs of the spa, indoor pool, health centre and indoor tennis facility give this complex the feel of a Hobbit-like village and, from behind plate glass windows in the bar, guests can watch the famous white horses from the Lippizaner riding school being drilled in stepping techniques or other guests being given riding tuition. In the sauna and steam bath area the etiquette is to go naked.

Wladimir Klitschko has set up his training camp in this nature reserve for several years, attracted by its “beauty and quiet seclusion…the perfect place to prepare myself mentally and physically.” But the calm, happy state of mind and physical well-being which he had exuded through almost two days of an open camp just over two weeks before his next heavyweight title defense was shaken severely when he was informed of British challenger David Haye’s withdrawal because of a back injury at just before 5 p.m. local time yesterday while talking to a small group of journalists from British newspapers.

“I have bad news … the fight is off … David Haye is injured,” Bernd Bönte, Klitschko’s manager, announced as he returned to the room having left quietly only moments before to take the fateful phone call.

“You are joking,” said Klitschko, a sentiment which echoed throughout the room.

“No joke,” Bönte said flatly. “Haye is injured. I have just received the call.”

Klitschko turned his gaze from Bönte and slowly mouthed a barely audible expletive as the reality suddenly dawned on him and the surrounding group of writers. Klitschko’s shock was more profound than anyone else’s. Momentarily, he was speechless as his trainer, Emanuel Steward, and other members of his team closed around him, but his professionalism and natural decency quickly compelled him to express his feelings even as the dramatic turn of events were still just sinking in.

“Is Haye ducking me?” he responded to a probing question about the possibility that the 28-year-old Londoner might suddenly have been overcome by the magnitude of his challenge. “I can’t say but I know that he would dish a lot of dirt if the circumstances were the other way round. It’s on his skin right now. He challenged me and now he is backing out. All I know is that I want to fight on June 20 and I will have to find a new opponent. I plan to proceed because I have waited on David Haye for half a year and the only reason that I did wait was because they wanted to do the fight at Stamford Bridge in London. This fell through, so my team were able to secure the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, home of German football team Schalke 04, and we are expecting 60,000 people on the night of June 20. Now we will have to see. The dogs are barking but the caravan keeps on going. David Haye is now just another challenger in the queue.

“Now I have no opponent, so I will have to consider Nikolai Valuev, Ruslan Chagaev and some others. I will not throw garbage at Haye because now he is on the floor. I will not kick a man when he is down, but this has never happened to me before, an opponent pulling out like this, and it is unbelievably frustrating. We will have to see what happens.”

British broadcaster Setanta Sports, whose head of boxing, Sean O’Hara, had been hugely influential in negotiating the deal to make the fight happen, had a vested interest in salvaging something from the wreckage, so the possibility of a postponement was floated.

“Adam Booth, who is David’s manager and trainer, called me from his training camp in Cyprus and said that David has a niggling injury which they thought they could deal with but it has become exacerbated and he cannot train,” O’Hara explained. “He has consulted medical opinion already, he will see another specialist in London, but because he can’t train he doesn’t believe he can fight on June 20. Klitschko and K2 Promotions will have to determine if they can still stage the fight once it becomes clear when David will be fit and ready again.”

Within 24 hours, Booth shed more light on the former world cruiserweight champion’s crushing setback when he spoke on Steve Bunce’s Boxing Hour on Setanta Sports.

“David is gutted. How else would he be?” Booth declared “He was close to everything he ever dreamed of but he had to make a logical decision that he couldn’t fight on June 20. It was an insidious thing, an underlying condition. As a trainer you react to the symptoms. He has had a back ache for two or three weeks but it hasn’t stopped him doing his training. A couple of days ago it became more of a concern when he couldn’t do some sessions and, having had an MRI scan, we know now that he needs rest for two weeks and aggressive physio, which he will get in London.

“So we need to know now whether Wladimir can wait for three weeks or whether he intends to fight somebody else on June 20. We could have let this run until the last minute and pulled out in the week of the fight, but we thought we would do the right thing and we told them straight away. The consultant has told us that we are looking at a three-week delay. David will be ready to step in the ring on July 11. When I spoke to Bernd last night I didn’t know we were looking at three weeks, I thought it was five weeks, but Bernd now knows. Word has come back to us, however, that they are looking to tie up Ruslan Chagaev on June 20. Does Wladimir want to fight David three weeks later or Ruslan Chagaev on June 20? It’s up to them now and we’re waiting to hear. If they choose a different option, they are at liberty to do this.”

The option which appeals most to Klitschko and his team is an encounter with Ruslan Chagaev, which Bönte was able to confirm would be for the vacant Ring heavyweight championship, pitting Ring’s No 3 heavyweight contender from Uzbekistan against the division’s No 1.

“Wladimir does not want to wait for Haye any longer,” Bönte declared. “Because of the promises we received from the Haye camp about Stamford Bridge, Chelsea Football Club’s stadium in London, we waited until June when Wladimir would have preferred to fight in March or April. The Stamford Bridge option fell through and we don’t really know whether Haye will actually be on July 11. What if he were to aggravate the injury when he resumes training? Where would we be then? Our first priority now is Ruslan Chagaev, but this is not a done deal. It would be a huge fight and it would be for The Ring championship as I have got confirmation of this from The Ring. We have 10 other fighters, including Kevin Johnson, Brian Minto and Michael Grant, who would be willing to step in, but Wladimir’s priority is Chagaev.

“As for the possibility of fighting Haye on July 11 instead, I know that the stadium would be OK but I don’t know that German broadcaster RTL and HBO would be OK, so that is the big question mark. I hope to finalize plans in the next two or three days and let’s see.”

Klitschko-Haye promised to be something of a throwback heavyweight title fight with the challenger’s X Factor generating genuine widespread interest in Europe and even in America, where a heavyweight title fight has not been staged since February 2008 when Klitschko fought Sultan Ibragimov at Madison Square Garden. Klitschko-Chagaev for the vacant Ring championship would be bad for Haye but a satisfactory substitute for Klitschko and, ultimately, good for heavyweight boxing.

Chagaev’s amateur pedigree, like Klitschko’s, is outstanding. In 1997 he beat the legendary Cuban heavyweight, Felix Savon, to win the gold medal at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary. The final tally of 14-4 left no room for doubt about his superiority over the three-time Olympic champion. But two bouts in which he had engaged prior to the championships became the subject of a major controversy when the International Amateur Boxing Association ruled that they were pro contests. Chagaev protested that they were both exhibitions – an first-round knockout of Don Penelton on Aug. 21, 1997 in Aurora, Ill., and a second-round KO of Brian Jones two weeks later in Rosemont, Ill. – but he was stripped of his gold medal and suspended from amateur competition for two years.

Ironically, he came up against Savon again when his return coincided with the world amateur championships in 1999 in Houston, Texas, but this time he lost to the Cuban in the final. His inactivity had hurt him, yet the defeat served as a wake-up call and two years later, with Savon in retirement, he won the gold medal at the world championships in Belfast and returned to his homeland as a hero.

Early in his pro career he based himself in Las Vegas and got his first real exposure in America when he outpointed Christopher Isaac over eight rounds on Showtime TV’s “ShoBox” series in May 2002. The one blemish on his record occurred five months later when he fought Rob Calloway in Detroit, referee Ron Cunningham declaring the bout a technical draw after halting the action at 2:41 of the third round because of a cut over Calloway’s left eye, which had resulted from an unintentional headbutt. Chagaev had dominated from the outset.

By the end of 2003, the 28-year-old was boxing out of the Universum Boxing Gym in Hamburg having been signed by Peter Kohl, who saw in him the potential to become one of the world’s leading heavyweights. The Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali, were the stars of the gym then and their emergence opened the doors for other Eastern European boxers to take control of what was once an exclusively American domain.

On April 14 2007 at the Prosche Arena in Stuttgart, Germany, Chagaev’s slick boxing exposed the myth of boxing’s giant, Valuev, the Eighth Wonder of the World, as promoter Don King had come to call a man whom others referred to as “King’s Kong.” Well-schooled by German trainer Michael Timm, Chagaev was confident that he had the skills to avoid the Russian’s cumbersome punches and do damage with sharp bursts of accurate blows. This is exactly how the fight panned out with Valuev made to look more ponderous than usual by Chagaev’s robustness and firm resolve. The Russian Giant was beaten on points by majority decision.

The rematch, which was set to take place last weekend in Helsinki , Finland , fell through when a hepatitis antigen was shown to be in his system after he underwent the pre-fight medical. Chagaev was suffering from hepatitis B when a proposed rematch in 2008 also fell through, but he would be cleared to fight by the German authorities now and the Veltins Arena looks set to have its fight on June 20 after all.