Boxing fans have had every right to complain about the heavyweight division. Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are finally going to meet for the undisputed heavyweight championship in May, but that bout has been years in the making. The mind-numbingly obvious Fury vs Anthony Joshua clash is yet to be made despite both being at the top of the sport for almost a decade. Wilder never fought Joshua or Usyk or even Andy Ruiz Jr. Those fights then evaporated when Joseph Parker defeated him.
But there was another period where the biggest fights never got made in the heavyweight division. The 2000s were a rudderless time in the land of the big men. A division littered with fading names, never-weres and a few shining flakes of pure gold. Join The Sportsman as we journey back in time.
The 1980s hinterland between the retirement of Muhammad Ali and the dawn of the ‘Iron’ age of Mike Tyson has been described as “the Lost Generation” of heavyweight boxing. For the sake of distinction we will refer to our batch of forgotten 2000s fighters as sufferers of the “Millennium Bug”. The changing of the clocks from 1999 to 2000 didn’t kill off our computers or turn our microwaves into sentient kill-monsters, but it did do a number on heavyweight boxing.
The most dramatic flashpoint was actually 2004 rather than the year 2000 itself. The retirement of lineal and WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis created a power vacuum at the top of the heavyweight tree. It was a vacuum nobody was quite equipped to fill.
The pieces had been falling into place for a while. Lewis had been the undisputed champion but sanctioning body nonsense had sent his other belts into the wind.
John Ruiz, an unpopular mauler from Massachusetts, had brawled his way to the WBA heavyweight championship. The IBF title was held by the undersized but smooth Chris Byrd, an Olympic silver medalist down at middleweight. The WBO title, vacant at the time of Lewis’ departure, had been picked off the shelf by the big-punching but limited Lamon Brewster.
The big names of yesteryear were still kicking around but they were fading fast. Evander Holyfield had swapped the WBA belt with Ruiz in a trilogy that paled in comparison to the three fights he shared with Riddick Bowe. Holyfield lost to Byrd in an IBF challenge after the Ruiz bouts, seemingly drawing a line under his time at the top. Damaging defeats to James Toney and Larry Donald ratified his decline, but the decade had not seen the last of ‘The Real Deal’.
The shadow of Tyson still loomed large. It was just a shadow by this point, though. Lewis had beaten the last credibility out of the ‘Iron’ one in a lop-sided 2002 stoppage win. Tyson had looked a little like his old self when decimating a beaten-before-it-began Clifford Etienne in 2003. But British trier Danny Williams would end the delusion in 2004, knocking Mike out in four rounds. The fact journeyman Kevin McBride was able to make Tyson quit on his stool a year later drew a sad line under an exhilarating and unforgettable career.
So with Lewis gone and his contemporaries Tyson and Holyfield faltering, it fell to the next wave of heavyweight to carry the burden. Wladimir Klitschko found his fingers burned by the baton. Highly-touted for his size and skills, the Ukrainian was knocked out twice during our “Millennium bug” period. Corrie Sanders stopped him for the WBO title in 2003 before Lamon Brewster did the same to capture the vacant belt the following year.
Vitali Klitschko fared better. ‘Dr Ironfist’ had beaten the brakes off Lewis in the latter’s final fight, before the Brit rallied and won on cuts after opening gruesome gashes on his challenger. But Vitali soon scooped the vacant WBC belt Lewis had left behind. The elder Klitschko went on a tear, stopping Kirk Johnson, avenging his brother against Sanders and ending Williams’ 15 minutes of post-Tyson fame in quick succession. But injury struck, when Klitschko tore his anterior cruciate ligament while training for a fight with former champion Hasim Rahman. He would not box again for four years.
Rahman had shook up the boxing world in 2001 when he upset Lewis to claim the heavyweight championship. His second title win didn’t cause the same ripples. Rahman saw the WBC interim title he picked up by beating middling contender Monte Barrett upgraded to the full championship when Klitschko packed it in.
Klitschko’s retirement kicked off a game of hot potato with the famous green belt. After drawing with James Toney in his only technically successful defence, Rahman lost the belt to Oleg Maskaev. The big Kazakhstani dumped the belt to Samuel Peter who then lost it to a comebacking Vitali in 2008.
The other belts experienced similarly confused existences. Nobody was able to exert true dominance, which helped create a disjointed era without a true elite heavyweight at the top of it.
Ruiz lost his WBA belt to Roy Jones Jr, who became the first former middleweight champion in a century to win a heavyweight crown. But ‘Superman’ then moved back down in weight, leaving Ruiz to win the vacant belt. He lost it to another former middleweight champion in James Toney, before having the title restored when ‘Lights Out” failed a drugs test. Ruiz would lose his title for the final time to the 7’2 Russian giant, Nikolai Valuev.
Valuev would be beaten by Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Chagaev but the new kingpin then vacated his title through injury. Valuev beat Ruiz for the unoccupied belt in an inspiring merry-go-round scenario. He would lose the title to Britain’s David Haye.
Meanwhile, for all his skills, ‘Rapid Fire’ Byrd was never going to last long in the land of the giants. The Olympic middleweight runner-up had performed admirably as IBF champion, scoring wins over DaVarryl Williamson, Jameel McCline and Fres Oquendo. But he nearly came unstuck against the best fighter he met during his reign, Andrew Golota. ‘The Foul Pole’ took Byrd to a draw on the cards and some viewed the champion as lucky to escape with his title.
In his way, Golota was a symbol of the lack of depth during this era. He was most famous for his flops. Two daft disqualification defeats to Riddick Bowe when he had been ahead on the cards. A collapse against Lewis and quitting against Tyson, albeit the latter was changed to a No Contest when marijuana was found in Mike’s system. But under the ‘Millennium Bug’, the Polish puncher secured three consecutive world title shots. Following the Byrd draw he lost a WBA title decision to Ruiz and was then knocked out in a round by Brewster for the WBO belt.
That quick win for Brewster captured the attention of a public craving a new Tyson. Coupled with the rout he had engineered on Klitschko the year before, fans were ready to buy into an exciting knockout artist as heavyweight champion. But in an era which just couldn’t get its sh*t together, he was relieved of his belt by the unheard-of Siarhei Liakhovich in his very next fight.
Liakhovich then lost that belt in his first defence to a relic of a bygone age, Shannon ‘The Cannon’ Briggs. Famous nowadays as a walking meme who chases people around shouting “Let’s go champ!”, he had found fame in the 90s for beating George Foreman for the lineal heavyweight title. His dying-seconds stoppage of Liakhovich captured the imagination. But the “Bug” struck again and he was dealt with by Sultan Ibragimov in his next fight.
Ibragimov would add to his antique collection by beating Evander Holyfield by decision. The veteran had built up a bank of wins against journeymen to get back into some form of contention. While Ibragimov widely-outpointed him, Holyfield did run Valuev close in a WBA challenge many thought he should have won. The fact a man nearing 50 could push a reigning champion so close said it all about this as an era.
The cleansing fire would come in the form of the Klitschko brothers. One returned while the other finally made good on the promise he had shown. Vitali knocked Sam Peter out for the WBC belt in 2008 and never looked back, making nine defences and retiring in 2012.
Wladimir’s turnaround was the most impressive. From getting slapped around by Brewster, Sanders and Ross Purrity, he went on to become the defining heavyweight of the 2010s. In 2006 he relieved Byrd of his IBF title. Ibragimov fell in 2008, giving ‘Dr Steelhammer’ the WBO belt. The Ring strap followed with a win over Chagaev before Haye had his WBA title snatched in 2011. Along the way, Klitschko exorcised the demons of a dying decade. Brewster, Peter and Rahman were among his many victims.
The ‘Millennium Bug’ had finally been cured. While the sport could not point to an undisputed heavyweight champion, there was at least a first family at the top of the tree. The belts found semi-permanent homes, rather than being passed around the undeserving in erratic fashion.
The baton-pass was a bit cleaner from here, with Fury beating Klitschko and, when he briefly retired, Joshua doing the same. The current custodians, those two plus Usyk and Wilder, may not have always put on the fights we want to see. But their stewardship has a lot more to recommend it than Ruiz vs Valuev II, Holyfield holding on too long or Golota failing upwards. Perhaps next year, with Fury/Usyk and Joshua waiting in the wings, it’ll even go down as one of the great periods in heavyweight history. If it does make it into the pantheon, it is safe to say it will not be joined by the dark ages of the “Millennium Bug” era.
