Heavyweights are unifying

NEW YORK -- Wladimir Klitschko walked briskly into Madison Square Garden three days before his heavyweight unification fight with Sultan Ibragimov, surrounded by an entourage dressed crisply in black Hugo Boss outfits.

Only a few curious people on the busy streets of Manhattan even noticed.

Not since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in their rematch in 1999 has there been a heavyweight unification bout, but the relative silence surrounding the massive IBF champion Klitschko and the equally nondescript WBO champion Ibragimov is a searing indictment of boxing's marquee division.

Even Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward speaks freely of the problems plaguing the heavyweights: competing sanctioning bodies that repeatedly block big fights, a lackluster amateur program in the United States that's failed to develop worthy challengers, and four titleholders from the former Soviet republics each calling themselves a champion.

"As soon as I learn the name of a champion, he's lost the next day," said Steward, who will be in Klitschko's corner on Saturday night. "I'm just starting to get out how to pronounce Nikolai Valuev … and they say he's lost to (Ruslan) Chagaev. I said, 'What?' "

Just like he never envisioned the day a black man would have a realistic shot at the presidency, Steward said he never envisioned four Eastern Europeans claiming a division that was dominated so long by Americans, from Joe Louis and Max Baer to Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali.

"It just shows you the world is so much smaller now," Steward said, "and the public is accepting this."

Accepting, perhaps, but not embracing.

Ringside seats to see the charismatic Roy Jones Jr. against feisty Puerto Rican hero Felix Trinidad last month cost more than $15,000 -- or fifteen times what similar seats are going for on Saturday night.

The pay-per-view draw to see two boxers well past their prime was also a surprising success, whereas Klitschko and Ibragimov can be seen by anybody with HBO.