Oleg Maskaev To Fight Wladimir Klitschko?
By Henry Stewart: According to the Russian website “Kommersant,” a fight is being arranged between Oleg Maskaev (34-5, 26 KO’s), the WBC heavyweight champion, and Wladimir Klitschko (47-3, 42 KO’s), the IBF heavyweight champion, with the fight possibly taking place in Moscow, Russia. Apparently, the promoter of Maskaev, Dennis Rappaport, is trying to arrange for the bout to take place, possibly in April 21, 2007. At this point, however, nothing has been ironed out. Before this fight can take place, it needs to be approved by both the WBC and IBF, since both fighters have mandatory challengers that they are required to fight early in 2007.
Wladimir, very likely, will be defending against Ray Austin, whereas Maskaev is scheduled to fight the winner of the James Toney vs. Samuel Peter fight, which takes place on January 6, 2007. After beating Calvin Brock, in his last fight, on November 11, 2006, Wladimir stated that he wanted to fight a unification bout with the other heavyweight champions, with Oleg Maskaev being the most likely of the three to fight him.
However, Wladimir, for obvious reasons, said that he preferred to fight the 7-foot Nikolay Valuev, due to his popularity, but assumed that it would be difficult, if not impossible to arrange for that fight to take place because of the fact that Valuev was promoted by Don King and the German-based Wilfried Sauerland.
If, however, arrangements can be made for Maskaev vs. Klitschko, this would be a huge fight, possibly the biggest heavyweight fight of the year. Though, the fight would be much more popular in Europe than the United States, for many fans are still not familiar with Oleg Maskaev, who before beating Hasim Rahman, in August, 2006, he was relatively unknown.
Before that bout, Maskaev had been in the rebuilding stage for his career, this after being knocked out on three separate occasions between 2000 and 2001, losing to Kirk Johnson (4th round KO), Lance Whitaker (2nd round KO), and Corey Sanders (8th round KO). Maskaev’s career was thought to be over, presumably, yet he rebounded with 10 consecutive wins culminating with the 12th round knockout of Hasim Rahman, a fighter that he had formerly knocked out in the 8th round back in November 1999.
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Posted December 14th, 2006 l 79 Views
