By Eric Thomas: Despite what the Klitschko brothers are saying about World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev not wanting to fight him, Valuev’s promoter Wilfried Sauerland begs to differ, saying that they’ve not been approached by the Klitschko brothers with a serious offer by them nor have them had contact in them in a year.
This is at odds with what the Klitschko brothers said earlier in the week, when they said they were unable to get a chance to win all the titles because the promoters of Valuev – Don King and Sauerland – were preventing the fight from taking place by making unreasonable demands. Bernd Bronte, the Klitschko’s adviser, said that King wants a cut of future fights of the Klitschko brothers if he allows Valuev to take the fight with one of them.
As such, it doesn’t appear that Valuev will fight either of the Klitschko brothers if what Bronte says is true, because neither of the brothers are about to let King or Sauerland get a cut of future fights of theirs. If they fight Valuev, it will be for that fight only and not have extenuating circumstances beyond that.
It may not matter soon, anyway. Valuev, 35, looked horrible in his last fight, defeating Evander Holyfield by a 12-round majority decision in Germany in December. Most people around the world, outside of Germany, felt that Holyfield easily won the fight was given a bad decision in the fight.
Win or lose, Valuev looked terrible, old, slow and weak. Some may say that this was a one fight fluke but it’s hard to look as bad as he did round after round without getting the impression that Valuev has declined as a fighter.
Even in his prime several years ago, he was a fighter that would have likely been handled by either Klitschko brothers, including a handful of other good heavyweights in the division. Unfortunately, Valuev has been well protected, kept away from fighter that would test him in a more serious way than his opponents – Serguei Lyakhovich, John Ruiz, Owen Beck, Monte Barrett, Jameel McCline, Jean Francois Bergeron and Holyfield – in the past three years.
In Valuev’s toughest fight during these three years, he was beaten by Ruslan Chagaev by a 12-round majority decision in April 2007. Chagaev and Valuev expect to fight in 2009, as long as Ruslan doesn’t develop another illness or injure himself again, and many people feel that Valuev will lose again.
If he doesn’t, he probably will in a rematch with Holyfield, because he looked like he didn’t know how to cope with Holyfield’s movement. It’s doubtful that the Klitschko brothers will want to fight Valuev if he’s beaten in 2009, because that would take away any real plus in fighting him.
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