SO MUCH AT STAKE

On 24 April the new era of heavyweight boxing begins where the last one ended, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, as Vitali Klitschko and Cornelius “Corrie” Sanders will contest the World Boxing Council title recently abdicated by Lennox Lewis.

While Lewis’s retirement means we’ll never see the rematch of the thrilling, brutal slugfest in which the Londoner engaged Klitschko in L.A. last summer, Vitali vs the hard-hitting South African southpaw Sanders is a fair substitute.

Klitschko still feels aggrieved he was stopped on cuts after getting the better of Lewis for most of the first six rounds and was dearly looking forward to the rematch.

But despite a huge offer from HBO, Lewis, 39 in September, elected to retire so what we have instead is a potentially exciting match-up between two of the hardest punchers in the game.

And when you factor in that Sanders obliterated Vitali’s kid brother, Wladimir, a year ago you have probably the biggest and best heavyweight title fight of 2004.

The winner of this fight will be perceived as the best heavyweight on the planet and real world champion.

Both men are ostensibly promoted by Klaus-Peter Kohl’s Hamburg based Universum operation. However, both Klitschkos are near the end of their current contracts and, according to rumours, are courting worldwide offers as well as considering setting up their own promotional group with a German sports management agency.

Sanders is only “with” Universum because he owes options after accepting the Wladimir fight.

Undoubtedly, it is in boxing’s best interest that Klitschko wins and, preferably, wins big. Now based in L.A. he’s huge, heavy-handed and at 32 will be sticking around for a few years longer than Sanders, 38, who stated at a London press conference it’s two more fights and out for him.

Klitschko also has the credibility of having done extremely well against champ Lewis in last June’s war. Ahead on all three scorecards before those hideous cuts forced the doctor’s intervention, “Dr Ironfist” has been installed as the People’s Champion; he’s the man who almost beat the man who beat the man, you might say.

He’s also the big betting favourite, quoted as 17-1 on by some bookmakers.

Team Sanders know they’re up against it, but are bullish. Manager Vernon Smith said over the phone from the Dark Continent: “Vitali cannot outbox Corrie — Corrie is too fast and Klitschko too slow. Their whole plan is to win by knockout, but will they really come forward for the knockout because Corrie’s hands are much faster and, remember, Vitali watched Corrie destroy his brother. That will be on his mind in the fight. We won’t make silly predictions but we are very confident.”

Sanders, 39-2 (29 KOs), also suspects the elder brother will have a middle-to-late rounds knockout in mind. Speaking shortly before leaving his Johannesburg training camp for Los Angles the former undefeated WBO champion said: “Maybe because I’ve had only five rounds in four years Vitali will think he can wait for six rounds for me to tire but he’s mistaken. I’m already in better shape than I was for the Wladimir fight. People think because of my [body] type and age I cannot be in shape, but Riddick Bowe in his prime proved fitness is not determined by big muscles and Lennox and Evander Holyfield proved heavyweights can still do 12 rounds aged 38 if they train hard.”

Sanders points out that although he’s not fought since his two-round torpedoing of the younger Klitschko in Hanover last March, he’s kept in shape. “It’s not like I haven’t trained since last March because apart from when I cut my hands [in a domestic accident in late 2003] I’ve been in great shape. Remember there was talk about me fighting Roy Jones for the WBA title or Wladimir again and I even went almost an entire camp for the Lamon Brewster fight which didn’t happen. I didn’t know when a big fight would be made so I ticked over almost all year. Forget age and everything like that — I can do 12 hard rounds no problem.”

And to make sure, he’s been sparring four-minute sessions with two giant African fighters who can match Klitschko for size and strength if nothing else.

And yet for all the South African’s talk of a long, possibly distance fight, the prevailing impression is this one isn’t going to reach the halfway mark.

Speaking from his L.A. training camp, Klitschko acknowledged this is a fight where both combatants could be one punch away from a stoppage win or loss.

In his ever-improving English he said: “You know what? It is heavyweight championship boxing. Any punch can decide a fight and end it immediately. A fighter can be 100 times better, 100 times more skilled, 100 times faster but still lose because of one heavyweight punch. Both myself and Corrie Sanders hit with power, and one punch can end it at anytime.”

While Team Sanders believe the fate of his sibling will make Vitali more judicious in the early going than he was against Lewis, I’m not so convinced.

Remember Vitali getting in Sanders’s face immediately after the Wlad fight? Remember him pushing his own camp aside in a rage, trying to get at Lewis when the WBC/IBO title fight was waved off? Vitali is nice fella from a chilly part of the world, but he’s got a fiery disposition.

The former undefeated two-time European champion laughed when I suggested he may struggle to control his emotions when faced with the man who ruined so much for his sibling. “Actually, I get more worried and emotional when Wladimir fights than I do. He’s my little brother, y’know? I don’t really want to talk about what was said between myself and Sanders after Wladimir’s fight but a lot of people are interested in this fight because he beat my brother and I understand that.

“This ‘revenge of the brother’ situation makes a big world title fight a big, big event and, sure, I am also more interested in this fight because he beat my brother. However, this fight is more about becoming the world heavyweight champion than revenge for my brother. To become world heavyweight champion has been a dream of mine for over 20 years. Wladimir will come back from his defeat on his own and prove himself a great champion and we, hopefully, will make history by being the only brothers to hold [versions of] the world heavyweight title at the same time.

“I am formulating strategies with my training team. I will do what I think gives me the best chance to win the world title. That could be landing first — the opening round could be very important — or it could mean building slowly.”

Klitschko is plotting those tactics alongside famed American trainer Emanuel Steward, left without a major heavyweight when Lewis retired. But Vitali insists Fritz Sdunek is still in charge of his regime and that Steward is “an advisor”.

Whoever has the final say in L.A., devising a strategy for coping with Sanders’s speedy southpaw style will be top of the agenda.

“It is true I have fought only one left-handed fighter — Chris Byrd — in my professional career,” Klitschko admitted. “But I fought many, many left-handers in my amateur career and, really, with the correct preparation and sparring it will not be a factor. My size makes hitting southpaws easier than it would be if I was a shorter fighter.”

Of course, current IBF king Byrd was declared the victor in that April 2000 WBO title fight in Berlin when Klitschko accepted medical advice and withdrew after the ninth round. He’d ripped his rotator cuff (which allows one’s arm to move) in his right shoulder in the third round and was told he was risking permanent damage and even limb paralysis if he continued in a fight he was winning by scores of 88-83 (twice) and 89-82.

Klitschko underwent reparatory surgery but was out for seven months and, I think, proved his mettle in his war with Lewis. He also illustrated that while he’s not as gifted as his Olympic champion brother, he has a much better chin. While Vitali finished the Lewis fight with a face that resembled a Velociraptor’s left-overs, he took everything Lewis hit him with including a huge sixth-round uppercut from the Londoner. If Klitschko could absorb that blow one wonders how likely a Sanders stoppage victory can be.

Unless it is achieved via cuts. Manager Smith believes Klitschko’s eye — which required 50 stitches and plastic surgery last summer — is a weakness his fighter can exploit.

He said: “No matter what they say or have done, Klitschko’s eye cannot be the same as it was before the Lewis fight. It can never be the same. They were horrible cuts around the eye and, obviously, if the cuts open up again then we will go after it because this is boxing and Corrie wants to win the WBC title.”

Naturally, Klitschko insists his eye is 100% but we don’t know that for sure. Although he fought WBA title-challenger Kirk Johnson at Madison Square Garden last December, the re-knitted flesh has yet to be tested because the Canadian was never in the fight.

The two round blast-out result looks great on paper, but Johnson looked woefully ill-prepared at a full 30lbs above his ideal fighting weight.

Smith wasn’t impressed. “We knew Klitschko would win easily and quickly. Vitali is a clever man and he will have understood as soon as the match was made — or at least as soon as he saw the shape Johnson was in — that he could walk right through Johnson. He knows he can’t go through Corrie like that.”

Perhaps, perhaps not. The only other big name on the South African’s record is Hasim Rahman, whom he dropped but couldn’t finish off. “The Rock” came back and scored a seventh-round knockout and then there’s Nate Tubbs’s two-round stoppage of Sanders from a decade ago. Whatever Klitschko’s thoughts on his opponent’s power, he has good reason to believe he carries the better chin into the ring.

Klitschko says it was Lewis who instigated the street fight last summer and that he’d actually planned in taking the older and possibly under-trained champ into the later rounds. Only as soon as Lewis attacked, Vitali couldn’t help but fight fire with fire. In fact, he seemed to revel in the tear-up. That’s why I suspect that as soon as Sanders lands one of those left-crosses Klitschko will get stuck in.

That should make for an entertaining fight and the upset is not unthinkable but in boxing general — and with heavyweights in particular — a chin almost always beats a punch. And Klitschko has a powerful dig and an awkward style to boot.

That’s why I think that while Sanders will get to land a few bombs, and maybe make his man hold once or twice, Klitschko’s hand will be raised around the sixth round.

For additional coverage, see April issue