By Ian Aldous: Former WBO World heavyweight champion, ‘Relentless’ Lamon Brewster (35-6) is currently in the process of launching fightingconnection.com, which will be a free networking tool for fighters, trainers, managers, cutmen and anyone involved in the sport. Here, Lamon talks about his successful 14-year professional career and explains his new project.

One of your greatest moments in the ring happened in April 2004 when you stopped Wladimir Klitschko in round five to claim the vacant WBO World heavyweight title. Were you still confident you could win after Wladimir started the fight particularly well?

LB “Yeah, I was confident the whole entire time because my plan to fight Wladimir was not to go out and fight early but to make him exhausted, make him punch himself out because Wladimir Klitschko cannot handle pressure, which has been proven. That’s why I can’t understand why people have not had success with him because he can’t stand pressure. So, I went out there as I trained in camp to put massive amounts of pressure on him and make him fight when he didn’t wanna fight, make him hold when he didn’t wanna hold and he fell apart. I hadn’t even planned on turning it up until the sixth round!”

Why do you think no one has been able to emulate what you and Corrie Sanders did to Wladimir, eight years later?

LB “It’s because everybody stands straight up and walks in. You can’t stand straight up against a man that what we call ‘punches down the line’ which is straight in front of you and down, as a fighter you gotta fight him low, you gotta fight off line and that’s the only way you’re gonna beat that dude, use body shots and cut the ring off. You’re gonna have to endure some punches unfortunately but it’s part of the victory and that’s what I did. If you watch the fight, I didn’t stand right in front of him, I was low and I kept my head off line every time he punched.”

It was a big achievement at the time but even more so now with the fact that Wladimir has gone on to win every fight since the loss to yourself and claim to be universally recognized as No.1 heavyweight in the World.

LB “Yeah, I mean rightfully so. I told everybody not to give up on Wladimir because I remember after he lost everybody was like ‘oh he’s a bum’ and I was like no, he’s a tremendous fighter but he just fought a better fighter that day. I really prepared well for him. Everybody forgets how bad they thought about him but now he’s like the greatest thing since Swiss cheese!”

It’s been just over a year since you retired from the sport, how is life treating you after hanging up the gloves?

LB “Well, you know in all honesty it’s been hard because I’ve been fighting since I was seven years old and I don’t know nothing else but fighting and my career was cut short, it wasn’t like I wanted to retire, I had to. And with that being said, what do you do? You just roll with the punches and the next best thing right now is I’m getting myself healthy again. I’m in the gym, running a boxing gym and helping fighters. I’m teaching guys the science of boxing. Not from the standpoint of ‘oh you can make some money’. I’m teaching them how to really fight, how to slip, how to counter, teaching them how to cut off the ring, how to break a man down, all of the things that I learned in my 31 years in the ring.”

Tell us about your new free project, fightingconnection.com

LB “Yes, It is something that I feel is going to change the entire world of boxing and all combat sports. With fightingconnection.com, let’s say if I want a manager, I’ll be able to put in my academics, I’ll be able to put in the state, the city, the country, if I’m looking for a promoter, a ring card girl, a cutman. So I’ve put this in place, it’s an automated system. With fightingconection.com, anywhere in the world that you go, you can put in the city and it’ll bring up all the cutmen in that city, in that country, in that region and you’ll see their profile, it’ll tell you who they work with, it’ll tell you their last bout and a star rating from 1 through to 5 from the person that worked with them……… My problem was when me and my wife took a vacation and we would go to other cities, other states, other countries and I’d wanna go to a gym and work out, I would have to look in the yellow pages and ask people and I could never find that one good boxing gym, so now you put in the area on fightingconnection and it’ll give you every gym that’s registered for free. I’ve promoted shows before and when we would get ready to find ring card girls, we went to strip clubs, now we ain’t gotta do that no more!………. Sparring partners, when I fought Wladimir I needed someone to have the European style, how do I find a guy who’s 6ft7in and 250lbs that’s a boxer? With fightingconnection, you put your height, weight, your profile, so when I go on there and say I’m looking for someone of Wladimir’s description and style, I get to click on their video and I get to see him sparring to see if that’s exactly who I want because I’ve had people that have flown from the other side of the world and then find out this is not what I wanted!”

Check out www.fightingconnection.com and pre-register now for free