Valuev/McCline: Does Jameel Have Enough Left To Shock “The Beast From The East”?
By TJ Swanagan: On Saturday, January 20th, Nikolay Valuev, the WBA heavyweight champion, will defend his title against Jameel McCline, a mammoth 6’6” 260 lb challenger known more for folding in big pressure fights than for some of his notable accomplishments, such as beating Shannon Briggs, Lance “Goofi” Whitaker and Michael Grant. Success, however, has eluded McCline during his career. Despite his huge size, McCline has never big a big puncher, seemingly lacking the correct punching technique or the needed aggression to go after his opponents. In the early part of his career, McCline was largely an average fighter, losing twice to journeymen fighters, Gary Bell and Greg Pickrom, and fighting to several draws.
In 2001, then 31-years old, McCline quickly resurrected his career when he stopped Michael Grant in the 1st round. In his next bout, McCline showed that his win over Grant was no fluke, when he won a unanimous decision over Lance Whitaker, who at the time was considered one of the hottest heavyweights in the division. Following this, McCline defeated Shannon Briggs, beating him by a lopsided 10-round decision. At this point, McCline was at the top of his career, however, he was quickly rushed into a heavyweight title bout against Wladimir Klitschko, who was the WBO heavyweight champion.
Without question, McCline froze when in the spotlight, looking petrified as he entered the ring. Unfortunately, he fought the way he looked, rarely throwing punches, other than short, flicking jabs, which he used mainly as a weapon to try in vain to keep Wladimir from coming in range. Wladimir quickly sized up McCline, seeing his reluctance to fight, and quickly took the fight to him. By the 10th round, McCline was nothing more than a cheap punching bag for Wladimir, who finally took him out with a series of hard combinations, sending McCline down for the count. From my perspective, it seemed as if McCline wasn’t ready for Wladimir, perhaps needing several more stepping stone fights, before taking on someone of Wladimir’s caliber. Nevertheless, what’s done was done, and it speared that his Management team had been gambling on the chance that he could pull off the victory, no matter how slight his chances would seem coming in to the fight.
McCline would bounce back from this defeat in 2003, beating Charles Shufford (by 3rd round KO), and Cedric Boswell (by 10th round KO), both of which were quality B-level fighters. In his next fight, McCline, again, challenged for a heavyweight title, when he went against Chris Byrd, the IBF heavyweight champion, on November 13, 2004. Like before, McCline failed to win, despite knocking Byrd down in the 2nd round and having him badly hurt. In the process, however, of trying to finish Byrd, McCline exhausted himself and had little energy left for the remaining ten rounds of the fight, though he was able to make it close on the final score cards, losing by a split decision.
Five months later, in April 2005, McCline took on Calvin Brock, one of the most highly rated young heavyweights in the division, and lost a ten-round unanimous decision. Once again, McCline has his opponent hurt in the early rounds, yet was unable to finish him off before ultimately running out of gas. At this point, McCline appeared to be in a badly needed rebuilding of his career, for he had taken on a quick succession of top heavyweights without much of rest in between to work on his skills against lesser fighters, ones that he could work on developing his skills. In his next bout, McCline returned to his winning ways, easily defeating hard punching journeyman Steve Pannell, stopping him in the 3rd round.
However, in McCline’s next bout, in November 2005, he was shockingly defeated by Zuri Lawrence, losing a 10-round decision to the journeyman fighter. This bout, perhaps more than any other, was the most difficult for McCline to accept, for it seemed to indicate that his career was winding down rather than moving upwards. Since then, McCline has his last six bouts, albeit against 2nd tier opposition, the most notable name among them being, Rob Calloway, whom McCline easily defeated by 10-round decision in April 2006.
Now, it would seem, McCline has come full circle in his career. After starting out his career in a rather disastrous manner, and then coming on and finding excellent success in the middle part, he has been mostly unsuccessful in the last four years. Nevertheless, McCline still has one huge, perhaps final chance at hitting in big when he takes on Valuev on January 20th in St. Jakob-Halle, Basel, Switzerland. The fact that McCline is even being given a shot at Valuev would seem to be nothing short of a miracle, given McCline’s recent ring history. Of course, this is obviously the reason he was selected in the first place, in other words, for Valuev to beat up on and look good against.
At the same time, McCline’s huge size, along with his earlier success in the ring, makes him an appealing opponent for Valuev to look impressive against. It doesn’t matter that most of the fans are blissfully unaware of the fact that McCline has done poorly against quality opponents dating back to 2002, the main thing is Valuev gets another win. Let me be the first to say it: McCline has almost a zero chance of winning the fight, and unless Valuev puts his hands down to his sides, McCline will be hopelessly outclassed by the monstrous, 7-foot Russian.
Related Posts
Posted January 8th, 2007 l 137 views
