21 years ago Vitali Klitschko advised Vladimir to quit boxing after his defeat to Lamon Brewster
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Late evening of April 10, 2004. The famous Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas. In the center of the ring, the jubilant American Lamon Brewster, who had just won the World Boxing Organization title in a fight with Vladimir Klitschko, in which he was considered a hopeless underdog. The exhausted Ukrainian, who had been on the canvas in the fifth round after tripping over the referee’s leg, was trying to get out of the ring with the help of his team and get to the locker room. He had just suffered the third defeat of his professional career, and the second in a year. It was a complete fiasco…
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“The consequences of this defeat were dramatic,” Vladimir recalled about this fight in his book “Challenge Management”. “You need to quit boxing for now,” Vitaly told me. Losing twice was a sign for him to listen and end his career. I was dumbfounded. He wanted to just write me off. He talked to me over and over again, expressed his concerns and advised me to quit boxing. This went on for weeks and months. He criticized me clearly and loudly during training. And he continued to do so. One time my patience ran out. We had a terrible fight. The conflict almost escalated into a fight, I kicked him out. It was a really serious quarrel, I forbade him to come to my training.
Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, Getty Images
It wasn't easy for me or for Vitaly. Who would like it if their younger brother roughly put them in their place. But I had no choice. I was desperate and ready to take the thorny path.”
The quarrel with his brother was not the only consequence of the defeat. Soon, the Premiere TV channel stopped cooperating with Vladimir, deciding to refuse further broadcasts of his fights. The brothers negotiated with Hollywood TV companies, which offered them small roles in films. But it turned out that all doors in the USA were closed to Klitschko Jr.
Add to this the end of Vladimir's cooperation with his long-time mentor, Fritz Zdunek, the termination of his contract with the Universum promotion company and, it would seem, a complete lack of prospects. Vladimir's words before the fight with Brewster – “This fight will answer the question of who I am” – seemed like a mockery, but, as it turned out, Klitschko Jr. knew what he was talking about.
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The fight with Brewster was indeed extremely important for Wladimir. He was just beginning to restore his lost reputation after a tough defeat in every sense of the word from Corrie Sanders. The aging South African seemed to have destroyed the beautiful legend of the new, real “white hope” of the heavyweight division by taking away the championship title from Klitschko Jr., which he had held for a little over three years and defended five times.
It was difficult to restore his reputation. Early victories over the Argentine Fabio Moli, who was just another scalp in Vladimir's collection, and the aging Danell Nicholson, who, although he had an impressive track record, had lost to all worthy opponents, allowed Klitschko Jr. to once again enter a championship fight. But they did not answer the main questions: what is the Ukrainian capable of and whether the defeat to Sanders was really an accident. That is why the fight with Brewster meant so much to the Ukrainian.
Lamon, who was not exactly a star, looked like a great option for the Ukrainian. Despite being three years older, Brewster had fought in the professional ring at that time one and a half times fewer fights than Klitschko – 31 against 44, and the most famous names on his record were Charles Shufford, whom Klitschko won ahead of schedule, and Clifford Etienne. Brewster lost to both.
A championship title at stake, a convenient opponent, a fight in Las Vegas – it would be hard to imagine a better scenario for a return to the forefront of professional boxing. Who could have guessed that the fight and the events around it would turn into a real drama for the Ukrainian and a detective story for everyone else.
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The first alarm bell for the Ukrainian sounded the day before the fight. The odds for the Ukrainian's victory, which were an unthinkable 11×1, fell to 7×1. In principle, this was also quite good, but, according to rumors, this happened because the American promoter Don King bet a large sum on Brewster's victory (by the way, no one confirmed this fact). And information about King appeared when the events after the fight took an unexpected turn.
This time, the legendary Emanuel Steward was in Vladimir's corner, who was just starting to work with the Ukrainian. “A great fight,” Manny said after the first round, in which Klitschko Jr.'s advantage was unquestionable: 33 accurate punches against his opponent's seven, almost complete control of the fight, precise jabs and clinches at the right moments.
There was no cause for concern in the second three minutes either: Klitschko confidently out-punched Brewster (32 punches against six), accurate right-handed hits. And overall, everything went well in the first 14 minutes of the fight, during which Brewster took 120 punches, landing only about 30 himself.
And then Klitschko suddenly began to lose strength literally before his eyes. The American sensed the situation instantly: he rushed into the attack, hit several good shots and pinned Klitschko against the ropes. The referee had to intervene, counting a standing knockdown on the Ukrainian. After the fight resumed, Vladimir began to save himself in a clinch. He held out, but after the gong he caught the referee's leg and fell. The judge, having assessed Vladimir's condition, decided to stop the fight. “He was unable to answer any of my questions,” the referee said. “I've never had to deal with a situation like this before.”
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Incredible events began after the fight. Vladimir's team, concerned about his condition, decided to immediately conduct a full medical examination at the Southern Nevada Medical Center. No serious injuries or damage were found in the Ukrainian, but one detail was alarming: his blood sugar level was several times higher than normal. And Vladimir's condition improved only the next day.
Klitschko's team initiated an independent investigation, assuming that the Ukrainian was poisoned, since many people had access to Vladimir's dressing room before the fight. Experts even named a series of drugs that could have caused such a condition – loss of coordination, loss of strength, loss of reaction. The FBI even declared its readiness to conduct an investigation, but the case gradually died down.
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Klitschko learned from this defeat. He almost completely changed his team, including the cutman: Joe Sauza, who was also called one of the culprits of the defeat, since he rubbed too much Vaseline into the boxer's body, disrupting the body's heat exchange, was replaced by Jacob Duran. Emanuel Steward was mentioned above. Vladimir's team got a personal chef and a physiotherapist. The brothers also reconsidered their attitude to organizing preparation for fights, pre-fight security, choosing hotels, etc.
“I wanted to win the championship title again and prove to everyone who had written me off what I was capable of. First of all, to my brother. He had always been an example for me. After that loud quarrel, I wanted to prove to him that I was a better boxer than he thought and that I was ready to achieve any goals if I had the motivation,” Vladimir recalled.
Klitschko Jr. did it. Yes, he didn’t immediately ascend to the throne of the “royal” division. Yes, he made his fans nervous several times and had unimpressive fights. But after the fight with Brewster, he did not lose for more than 11 years, becoming one of the most dominant champions in the history of the heavyweight division. And yes, he took revenge on the American, simply destroying him in the ring in July 2007.
“When I fell to the canvas with then champion Brewster, everything changed for me. I was called a “walking dead man”, a “broken man” and so on. But despite the words of the skeptics, I lit a flame that allowed me to become who I am,” – Vladimir Klitschko called the turning point in his life. And he is not wrong.