Not Much Fits

The Sunday Times

Boxing: Big win for the beast
BRIAN DOOGAN
He is 7ft, weighs 24st and is billed as a freak but Nicolay Valuev has the last laugh by claiming the WBA heavyweight title
Paul Gallico, the American novelist, once wrote about “the tale of the living giant, a creature out of the legends of antiquity, who was made into a prizefighter and became the heavyweight champion”. It was, he insisted, the most “scandalous, pitiful, incredible story”, for Primo Carnera, the Ambling Alp from Italy who won the title from Jack Sharkey and fought Joe Louis, was never anything more than “a fourth-rater at prizefighting ”. Last night in Berlin, 10,000 people came to the Max Schmeling Halle to gape and guffaw at Carnera’s successor, the Beast from the East, Nicolay Valuev, who stands 7ft, weighs 24st and bears a disturbing resemblance to Neanderthal Man. In fighting terms, he was a fourth-rater at best but after 12 rounds of uninspiring boxing he somehow became the new WBA heavyweight champion of the world — there are three others who also lay claim to the heavyweight title, Lamon Brewster, who holds the WBO version, Chris Byrd, the IBF champion, and Hasim Rahman, the WBC champion. They are all journeymen at best.

The 32-year-old Russian’s extraordinary challenge for the WBA belt, which had been held by the ordinary John Ruiz, owed everything to its freak value and nothing to the standards of what was once the richest prize in sport. “Come one, come all. Watch Shrek box,” was how the Boston Globe, Ruiz’s hometown newspaper, summed up the fight. It was a spectacle that belonged beside the bearded lady and fortune teller in a three-ring circus. Not even the presence at ringside of Muhammad Ali, whose daughter, Laila, boxed on the undercard, could invest this freak show with a semblance of dignity. The result, with two judges scoring for Valuev, with the third making it a draw, was wrong but the fact that it was even open to debate said everything about the state of heavyweight boxing and Valuev’s place in it.

A Goliath in gloves and a blue pair of trunks that could double as curtains, Valuev showed the athletic grace of a herd of buffalo on the stampede. This was his 44th fight in an unbeaten career that has taken him to fistic fairgrounds in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, then around the world to Sydney, Yokohama, Prague, Minsk, Seoul and even London. “The hardest part of the night,” Ruiz had mused, “will be helping to get him up. He has a head the size of a Volkswagen. I won ’t be able to miss.” But this King Kong took all his assailant’s shots and roared hard enough to win. Ruiz found him harder to hit than he expected and the giant proved game, standing up to the hooks that the champion smashed against his chin and into his massive midriff. “A tugboat and a super tanker, that’s how it looks to me,” said a wag at ringside. “Robbery,” cried Ruiz.

Valuev, the unlikely successor to Dempsey, Louis and Ali, has been packaged as cruelly as the sad Carnera once was. Most of Valuev’s opponents have been cannon fodder. One, an American called Gerald Nobles, was so unnerved when he came face-to-navel with Valuev at the weigh-in that he deliberately aimed blows to the behemoth’s knees to get himself disqualified when they fought.

With a pawing jab and a telegraphed right hand, Valuev had built a reputation. In little arenas, using his massive body to intimidate his fear-ridden foes, he was able to make a living. “Because of his size, he was promoted as a sideshow act but I saw in him something different,” said Wilfried Sauerland, the German promoter who signed him up two years ago. “I believed with effort and better training he could become world champion.”

Valuev earned his opportunity to fight for a championship belt with a controversial majority decision against Larry Donald. The American made him look like the ungainly colossus that he is when any opponent is able to move a little too quickly and a little too often — Ruiz’s movement last night was ineptly negligible — but, in the eyes of the judges, Donald had not done enough. “He was able to make it look, just by his sheer size, that he was hitting me when he wasn ’t,” said Donald. “I never faced a man like him ever and I never seen a man like him either.”

Valuev was 6ft 7in by the age of 16, the freakish effect of the same pituitary gland disease that afflicted Carnera. “I have always been bigger, even from when I was an infant,” Valuev explained. “I always knew I was going to be very large when I became a man. The question was how large.”

As a boy, he had a passion for sport. When somebody suggested he should learn to box he was set on a path always more likely to meet with the gawking that preceded last night’s tainted glory.

“Growing up was magnificent. I was happy. But I never dreamt of becoming champion, becoming rich and having the chance to travel all over the world,” Valuev said. “I did not think this could happen to me through boxing. The sport was very popular in Russia and I began boxing in 1992. I was 20 and I wanted to do something active. I had about 13, 14 amateur fights, not many, but because of my size and strength I was able to become the Russian national championship silver medallist in 1993. At first, boxing was a hobby but I decided to become a professional fighter quickly.”

Despite the derision, Valuev never gave up on his dream and Ruiz’s failure to box more assertively created the necessary illusion for the big man in the eyes of the judges.

“I know what people think. Of course, I’m very strong and I’m huge and not what people usually see in a boxer. But I have heart. I’ve been knocked down and I’ve got up and now I’ve proved I’m a champion, too,” Valuev declared. “My boxing skills are improving all the time. I’ve surprised people that I’ve been able to go 12 rounds. Because of my different size I do a certain type of training to strengthen my powers of endurance. I train about five hours a day and more than that as I get closer to a fight. If people take me seriously or not, that is up to them. But I take boxing very seriously. It’s a serious business when two men climb into the ring.”

He is a champion now but still people snigger when they catch a glimpse of the giant. “Big guy,” said a cynical old man with a cigar and a heavy New York accent. “Can’t fight a lick.”