By John F. McKenna (McJack): Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko are representative of a new breed of heavyweight. They are bigger, stronger and to a large degree more committed to boxing than American heavyweights who were long dominant in the division. During the Heavyweight Championship reigns of Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson in the 1950’s, the typical heavyweight weighed in between 190 lbs and 200 lbs.

Marciano was 5’10” and weighed 187 lbs. Patterson was 6’0” and weighed 182 lbs when he won the title in 1956. When Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammad Ali) fought for the title in 1964 it heralded a new era of larger heavyweights. Clay was 6’3” and weighed 210 lbs against Liston who was 6’1” and weighed in at 214 lbs. Clay was hyped by the media as an example of the “new era of super heavyweight”. He would quickly blossom into a 217 lb fighter, which for that era was considered to be a big heavyweight.

The smaller fighters of the late1950’s and early 1960’s, such as Floyd Patterson, Zora Foley and Eddie Machen were not able to cope with the size of the new “Super Heavyweight”.

When you fast forward to the current era of heavyweights, a fighter who weighs 217 lbs and is 6’3” is considered small by today’s standard. A fighter of that size would be given very little chance against either Wladimir Kilitschko at 6’6”, 247 lbs, or Vitali Klitschko at 6’7”, 252 lbs. In addition to the size of the new “Super Heavyweights”, the training methods are vastly improved. Today, instead of the majority of the heavyweight contenders coming from the USA, a large percentage are coming from Eastern Europe. Of course size has a lot to do with it when you consider the Klitschko’s. However there is more to it than just size. Tomasz Adamek, from Poland, although he currently resides in New Jersey, is a prime example of a fighter who takes his craft seriously and is always in shape. Adamek at 6’2”, 220 lbs defeated the bigger and stronger American heavyweight Chris Arreola 6’3”, 250 lbs on April 25, 2010 by coming into the ring in better shape and outworking him.

The fighters from Eastern Europe are notorious for being prepared when they step into the ring. Trainer Teddy Atlas took Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin under his wing because he likes his work ethic, stating that he was finding it increasingly difficult to find American heavyweights who were willing to pay the price. Atlas stated that there are a number of gifted American heavyweights who had the talent to become champions, but the dedication is lacking.

When Emanuel Steward became Wladimir Klitschko’s trainer, Wlad had suffered three knockout losses. Vlad always had the tools to be a great heavyweight, but he had a glaring weakness, that being his stamina. Steward went to work immediately on Klitschko’s conditioning. He also worked on his footwork and his tactics. Steward, ever the ring tactician, analyzes and re analyzes every opponent that Vladimir faces. Since Steward became his trainer, Klitschko has become a dominant Heavyweight Champion. The only fighter who would have a chance of beating Vladimir would be his brother Vitali. Vitali, has never been knocked down and has the highest KO percentage of any Heavyweight Champion in history. In addition, he has never been behind in a fight and has not lost a round since his comeback in 2008. Those are pretty amazing statistics. There are those who constantly launch there diatribes against Vitali, claiming that he is fortunate that he has fought in this era of weak heavyweights. To that I say hogwash!

In every other sport and in every other boxing division, the athletes have been getting bigger, faster and better, but the Klitschko critics say that the heavyweight division has gotten weaker. It is illogical and does not make any sense. Part of the problem is simply this, the Klitschko’s are from the Ukraine. They look a little different and they do not fit the stereotype of what an American heavyweight should look like.