Thursday, December 5, 2002
Bright Heavy
By By Tim Struby
The Steigenberger Parkhotel looms conspicuously in the midst of the steel and glass postwar makeover that is Düsseldorf. The stone and concrete behemoth could have been the palace of a Hapsburg prince. The Steigenberger is a serious place, and on this damp fall morning -- amid the mirrored walls, marble floors and ornate chandeliers -- there's an air of seriousness inside to match. More serious than ordinary German seriousness, which is quite serious to begin with. Headquarters for this seriousness -- which radiates from a crowd of scurrying reporters, photographers, TV crewmen, waiters, bellmen and administrators -- is the Heinrich Heine ballroom, where UNESCO is honoring two of the international cultural organization's most renowned emissaries. They sit at the dais, two very large honorees. A local socialite introduces them as brothers, and PhDs.
The men stand to a wave of applause, and their enormity is striking: a gray-and-navy seawall of fine Italian wool. Unlike the thin-lipped and angular-faced crowd, the brothers have faces
with wide, soft edges and compassionate, dark eyes. Their thick frames harken to an ancient
heritage, making them look like nothing so much as stonecutters who build castles by hand.
"Each child all over the world should have the right to get an education," says the younger of the two, Wladimir, 26. Tapes roll. Flashbulbs pop. Pens scribble. "We will do anything possible to make it a huge success." (This is no idle boast: Over the next year, Wladimir's UNESCO duties will take him to South America and Africa.) He and Vitali, 31, address the audience in German, field press questions in English and whisper to each other in Ukrainian. Both mix a reserved poise with a palpable presence, somewhere between Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger. After the presentation, their equally well-tailored press agent/liaison/manager, Bernd Bonte, hustles them through a gauntlet of interviews and lunches and conversations. And then, racing to make the flight home to Hamburg, their chauffeur is stopped at a checkpoint on the airport tarmac.
An official grumbles a request. Papers? Passports? Bribe? Bonte pats his pockets and shakes his head. Vitali removes something from his briefcase, scribbles on it and passes it to Wladimir, who also scrawls on it before handing it to the guard. An autographed photo. Fame is today's currency, so they are waved on. Aboard the plane, the brothers -- now the target of whispers and pointed fingers -- squeeze into their first-class seats, snug as mouthpieces. Wladimir grabs a newspaper and reads -- about the German elections, the Middle East crisis, whatever. He's interested in it all, this paragon of the Modern Man. He has a global perspective and a social conscience. He yearns to change people's lives.
And if, along the way, Wladimir Klitschko becomes the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world -- well, that'll be fine too.
***
Wladimir pushes open a heavy door inside Hamburg's Universum Box-Promotion boxing gym. The hockey rink-size facility is home to two rings, a grandstand and speed and heavy bags. It's also home to a laundry room, TV lounge, sauna, dorm rooms for sparring partners and a spacious locker room that smells like ... baby powder. Universum Box-Promotion is without a doubt the cleanest gym in boxing history.
Klitschko is a bit atypical as well. In white T, shorts, socks and shoes, he looks nothing like a fighter. Fighters are tainted with dirt, literally and figuratively: sweat stains, chip on the shoulder, dubious past. Here, looking as angelic as ever a fighter has -- in the cleanest gym in history -- is a learned man who works with his hands. Here is a compassionate man paid to be violent, a white man in a business of color. Aside from a scar under his left eye (from a head butt), there's no evidence to suggest he's ever engaged in fisticuffs, let alone knocked out 36 of 39 opponents or been mentioned as the heir apparent to Lennox Lewis.
On this night, his Dec.7 fight in Las Vegas against ranked contender Jameel McCline has not yet been finalized. But still Klitschko works hard. Most fighters train, reluctantly, in spurts timed to ready them for bouts. Klitschko is always training, always a week away from fight-ready. This is not so much because he likes it -- or because he and Vitali, also a top-10 heavyweight, have their own glossy exercise book to promote -- but because that's what Klitschkos do.
Tonight, he starts with a 5K run -- his 6'7", 243-pound frame shaking the treadmill with every stride -- before moving on to shadow boxing. Traditionally, European boxers -- particularly European big men -- fight with the fluidity of cadavers, but American trainer Tommy Brooks has smoothed out Klitschko's flow. He's still a stand-up fighter, a bit stiff, but Brooks has put some glide into his footwork. Klitschko finishes with an hour of shrugs and curls under the meticulous eye of a strength coach and fellow Ukrainian known only as Roman, who looks like the captain of a Gulag wrestling team. Klitschko's regimen has been fruitful: He's one of the most complete heavyweights in recent memory. "In this market and in this talent pool," says Lou DiBella, the former head of HBO Boxing, "a guy with Wladimir's ability is the likeliest to succeed Lewis."
And yet, despite all his physical gifts -- despite 134 amateur wins, Olympic gold in 1996, the WBO belt, a sweet six-fight deal with HBO and a sixth-round TKO of Ray Mercer earlier this year -- despite all of this, Klitschko skeptics have plenty of ammunition. He was, for example, clearly bothered by Mercer's stiff jab. More important, he has yet to weather career-defining adversity. In fact, in the closest he's come, he failed. Four years ago, firmly in control against glorified journeyman Ross Puritty, Klitschko ran out of gas in the 11th and lost. "He definitely has ability, but there are things that keep me from jumping on board," says ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas. "First, he quit in the Puritty fight. Second, he's too European, vulnerable to the right hand over the jab. Now, it's possible, with the right people behind you, to be navigated to a title. But does he have enough to keep it? All that fame in Germany is good financially, but it may be bad in the long run."
That last swipe, a version of the repeated observation that Klitschko is not focused enough on winning, is a reasonable doubt in a sport where desire may be more important than skill. "I was young," Klitschko says of the Puritty fight. "But it was a positive experience. I learned." And you believe him, partly because he's obviously a student of his own game and partly because in no bout since has he shown any signs of fatigue. But you're also aware that he's not really defending himself. More than confidence, Klitschko has a genial indifference to others' opinions that only someone with a healthy alter ego can have.
Midway through Wladimir's workout, that alter ego, Vitali, drops by. There is no story of one brother -- no real story -- without the other. The two lives are so intricately intertwined that they've become simply "The Klitschkos," a singular entity. They are best friends, each other's blood entourage. The scenario is ideal, because boxers, especially rich and famous ones, have fears and concerns that only other rich and famous boxers can understand. And yet rich and famous boxers can never admit such vulnerability to each other. Unless, of course, that other rich and famous boxer happens to be your brother.
"He was my hero," says Wladimir, who, like most Eastern Bloc athletes -- most Eastern Bloc people, for that matter -- is not one to plumb his own emotional depths. The brothers were born behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union and under the iron fist of their father, U.S.S.R. air force colonel Wladimir Rodionovich Klitschko. The family was rich in military history, five generations rich, and their home was defined by education and discipline. Wladimir Rodionovich dreamed of his sons in uniform, so every day after school -- whether in Kazakhstan or Chechnya or Ukraine (where they settled in 1985) -- the father made the sons repeat their multiplication tables or recount their lessons on Czar Nicholas II. Diligence earned a sort of reward -- more exercises -- but mistakes begot a clear and present punishment: spanking. Wladimir Rodionovich believed communism was virtuous, and virtue exacts a price.
But everything changed when, at 13, Wladimir read Robinson Crusoe. He'd heard about broad oceans and exotic lands from Vitali, a kickboxer who traveled more than most Ukrainians, but the printed pages burned images in the younger brother's mind. He knew he had to see them. In the Soviet Union, there were only two paths by which to follow Robinson Crusoe -- politics or sports -- and when Wladimir put on his first pair of boxing gloves, his route was decided. After losing his first two amateur bouts, he started winning and pretty much never stopped.
Then, in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. Could it be that all he was taught to believe, all his father represented, was wrong? Was he really free to drop everything, to cut short the slow but steady rise through the amateur ranks and instead roam the oceans and islands he'd dreamed of?
The temptation was strong, but not as strong as the voice he'd heard every day after school and still hears: the voice of a soldier, a communist, a father. The message was simple -- work tirelessly, think fiercely, respect everyone.
"It's about principle," Wladimir says, as the Klitschkos and Bonte dine at a Greek restaurant. "You set out to do something and you do it." As they wait for plates of filet mignon, salmon steaks, Greek salads, steamed vegetables and mugs of hearty dark beer, Wladimir poses a strange question for an athlete in training.
"Anyone have a cigarette?"
The waiter hands him a Marlboro. Klitschko drops his head for an instant, and a boyish smile creeps across his face. He focuses on the cigarette, which looks like a matchstick in his meaty hands. "Look," he says, as the cigarette vanishes with a twist of the wrist. "Magic!"
Surprise is the theme of the evening. It's a cliché by now to describe fighters as worldly brutes, but the reality is that most fighters' knowledge of international politics pretty much centers around their sport's governing bodies, and history means stories about Rocky Marciano or Joe Louis. Klitschko, on the other hand, is truly a man of the world. Between courses there is talk, lots of talk -- about socialism, capitalism, Pythagoras, Bon Jovi, Steven Soderbergh, fear, philosophy, even a joke involving a monkey, a mule and a man -- but not a word about boxing.
The Brothers Klitschko have each other's back.
Wladimir, it turns out, doesn't much like the sport. Understand, he loves to box: the sparring, the adrenaline, the combat, the strategy, the kill. But the rest -- fighters, rankings, scandals and media -- is superfluous. Annoyance. Trying to pin him down about contenders or upcoming fights is like trying to squeeze him into a 42-regular suit. He'd rather tell you about bungee jumping from a helicopter or his PhD thesis on coaching amateur boxers or his desire to direct movies. What he's not eager to chat about is his personal life: stunning Ukranian girlfriend, ritzy Hamburg apartment, frequent trips to the tanning salon. And although he is a private man whose outsized body and fame make hanging out in public more trouble than fun, he's a habitual networker, with pals all over the globe. In fact, whenever a conversation lulls, Klitschko uses his cell phone to e-mail friends in Spain, Russia, the States.
Tonight there are few lulls, and eventually Klitschko recounts a recent meeting with one of his heroes, a man who's been what Wladimir hopes to be: a citizen of the world who was also heavyweight champion.
"We saw him on his birthday," says Wladimir. "Ninety-six. Can you believe it?"
Last March, Wladimir and Vitali drove to the woods on the outskirts of Hamburg at the behest of Maximilian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling, the man who gained immortality by handing Joe Louis his first loss, in 1936. The oldest living heavyweight champ does not usually take visitors -- let alone sit with them for an hour -- but, clearly, Schmeling sees himself in the younger Klitschko. Wladimir may have met Bill Clinton, dined with Arnold Schwarzenegger and battled Garry Kasparov (who checkmated him in 22 moves), but 70 years ago Schmeling rubbed elbows with Marlene Dietrich, Franklin Roosevelt and Al Capone.
The young man's tales of Moscow weekends, SoHo strolls and an Ocean's Eleven cameo eerily mimic those of an old man who was once the toast of cabaret society, a film star, an internationalist. Klitschko, like Schmeling, is a breed of athlete the world has rarely known. He does not speak the language of traditional fighters who eat, sleep and breathe boxing, who possess a single-mindedness so powerful that most eventually pay a price. Unlike Tyson, Holyfield, Duran, even Ali -- men who ultimately fought too long -- Klitschko believes that what some see as distractions are, in fact, a source of strength. Only by embracing life outside the ring can his rendition of the modern fighter stay fresh, interested, motivated.
"It would be nice to wind up like Max," says Wladimir. "Great career, great businessman, great life." And although his approach is alien to purists, Klitschko still has his advocates. "It's good for him and good for boxing," says John Beninati, a former matchmaker for Don King. "He doesn't get pigeonholed. He stays fresh."
Of course, there's a fine line between staying fresh and losing focus. Lewis also was in Ocean's Eleven -- he and Klitschko square off in the film -- but the lark cut into Lewis' training for his '01 bout with Hasim Rahman, and he lost to the heavy underdog. Even Schmeling, who hungered more for adventure than for the heavyweight crown, successfully, defended his title only once before losing in a rematch to Jack Sharkey in 1932. "I'm not sure whether it is boxing to which I owe the greatest experiences in my life," Schmeling wrote in his autobiography. "Wasn't it in the end perhaps only a means to break away from the crowd, to climb to the spotlight?"
Klitschko is sure to have his time in the spotlight, more than he wants. Oddsmakers have him a 5-1 favorite over McCline, but a win won't immediately set him up to fight Lewis. Vitali (a former WBO titleholder, but a lesser talent) will get that opportunity first, most likely in March, owing to the acronymed chaos that bedevils boxing. Assuming the heavily favored Lewis retains his belts, he'll likely sign on to repummel Tyson before finally facing Wladimir. When that happens, don't be surprised to hear words of triumph yelled in German, English and Ukranian at the postfight press conference. Ex-Tyson trainer Ronnie Shields thinks no one in the world "stands a chance" against Wladimir. No current heavyweight can match his skills, technique and -- most of all -- power. And who has nearly the ring smarts? The answer looms as large as his 6 1/2-foot frame.
Klitschko acknowledges that owning the title of best in the world is his goal, perhaps even his destiny. But then he'll tell you that in the long run, the title means less than the journey. "At my funeral," he says, "I want people happy, not crying. And they will not talk about being world champion. They will say that I was a good man."
