Boxing: Burdens and Challenges - Part One

By Patrick Kehoe: Boxing's heavyweight division of 2004 has no central axis point, no strident figure commanding athletic or economic omnipotence, let alone anything like general acclaim as champion. Vitally Klitschko, effectively decreed 'world champion' via the mega-platforming of HBO Championship Boxing broadcast(ers), in truth, merely stands at the head of a line of claimants, of an aborted and diminished, mythical sporting legacy: the heavyweight champion of the world.

On November 13, in New York's Madison Square Garden, a virtual cavalcade of heavyweight ex-champions, belt-holders and fizzled forces meet in a Don King box-off extravaganza. This meeting of the muddied and the morbid proposes to be a struggle for divisional survival. "Struggle for Survival" being Don King's public relations tag line for this collection of 'name' heavyweights, in effect, beginning what will be a box-off for something like a final determination of the heavyweight title. Or should that line read "heavyweight titles" and indetermination? Though, it might be asserted that none of the fighters, not Chris Byrd, certainly not Jameel McCline, nor Hasim Rahman, clearly not Evander Holyfield are about to reassert the prominence of boxing in the sports entertainment industry.