Brock excited to fight Klitschko
Calvin Brock turned down two previous offers to fight Wladimir Klitschko before agreeing to a Nov. 11 title bout. (Jae C. Hong/AP)
Heavyweight contender Calvin Brock never regretted turning down two offers to fight titlist Wladimir Klitschko. He believed neither deal was right for him. The third one, however, was the charm.
Therefore, Brock, the 2000 U.S. Olympic super heavyweight, will face the 1996 Olympic gold medalist for a heavyweight championship Nov. 11 (HBO) at New York's famed Madison Square Garden.
"I've always said that when I go into a world-title fight, I want to fight the best champion, and after I beat Klitschko, I will be recognized as the most legitimate and best of the world champions," Brock told ESPN.com. "I'm very confident that I am going to win and I feel very blessed. Everyone has been gunning after Klitschko and I am blessed to be the one to get this world title shot. I'm very excited and very happy about everything that is about to take place."
Brock will go into the fight armed with a new three-year contract from promoter Main Events, with whom he has agreed to stay with after spending the past month listening to offers from about 10 other promotional firms.
Wladimir Klitschko
Klitschko
Klitschko-Brock will formally be announced Sept. 19 in New York, Klitschko adviser Shelly Finkel told ESPN.com.
Finkel had offered Brock the fight early in the summer, but Brock didn't like the terms and opted to fight Timor Ibragimov instead in a June HBO fight. After Brock won, he said Finkel made another offer.
"They came back a second time and it still wasn't right," Brock said.
Finally, when Finkel couldn't finalize a unification fight between Klitschko (46-3, 41 KOs) and Oleg Maskaev, and Shannon Briggs walked away from the fight in order to pursue a shot at the title held by Sergei Liakhovich, he went back to Brock.
This time, the seven-figure deal had been tweaked enough for Brock to bite.
"Brock is a better fight for the public, anyway," Finkel said, referring to Briggs' surprise exit from the picture. "If Wladimir knocks Briggs right out, Briggs was a bum. If Briggs gives him a hard time, they'll say Klitschko's not that good. It was a very hard thing to do, either way. Brock is a fresh face and an undefeated top contender. It's a good fight. There is nothing negative about it."
Klitschko will be making the first defense of the title he won via knockout of Chris Byrd in April in Germany.
Brock said he'd like to be the fighter to break the stranglehold that fighters from the former Soviet Union have on the four major titles.
"It means something to me because the public is itching and demanding to have a U.S. heavyweight champion and I would like to be the one, which will make me a more popular champion," Brock said. "But I don't look at it as added pressure."
Brock (29-0, 22 KOs) certainly will be an underdog against Klitschko, but he is unfazed.
"I think he's very good and everything he has received, he deserves it," Brock said. "But I don't see anything in him I haven't seen before in the amateurs, the pros or in sparring. There's nothing he has that I don't have an answer for. Therefore, I am very confident I will win. But he's a good champion, athletic, good power, good skills. Of all the champions, he's the best."
Brock said he enjoyed being recruited by other promoters -- something he never had a taste of as an unwanted boxer coming out of the 2000 Olympics -- but is happy to be returning to Main Events.
"Main Events is the promoter that got me all the way to the title shot," he said. "They also offered the best terms and the best deal. They're the ones I felt the most comfortable with. I like them, I felt comfortable with them and they got me this far.
"But I enjoyed the experience of talking to all the other promoters to the fullest. It was more of a self-gratification thing. I wanted to see what I was worth. It was what I missed out on when I came out of the Olympics when all of the promoters were running after the other boxers and not me. So it felt great to be the hottest thing in the heavyweight division and have them all calling me."
Main Events, which suffered blows recently with disastrous losses by franchise fighters Fernando Vargas and Arturo Gatti, is happy to keep Brock in the fold.
"It's our belief that he will beat Klitschko and we will have the real heavyweight champion," Main Events' Carl Moretti said. "You want to finish what you started, and we've been with Calvin for a long time. You want to see the cake rise after you have put all the ingredients in."
Calvin Brock turned down two previous offers to fight Wladimir Klitschko before agreeing to a Nov. 11 title bout. (Jae C. Hong/AP)
Heavyweight contender Calvin Brock never regretted turning down two offers to fight titlist Wladimir Klitschko. He believed neither deal was right for him. The third one, however, was the charm.
Therefore, Brock, the 2000 U.S. Olympic super heavyweight, will face the 1996 Olympic gold medalist for a heavyweight championship Nov. 11 (HBO) at New York's famed Madison Square Garden.
"I've always said that when I go into a world-title fight, I want to fight the best champion, and after I beat Klitschko, I will be recognized as the most legitimate and best of the world champions," Brock told ESPN.com. "I'm very confident that I am going to win and I feel very blessed. Everyone has been gunning after Klitschko and I am blessed to be the one to get this world title shot. I'm very excited and very happy about everything that is about to take place."
Brock will go into the fight armed with a new three-year contract from promoter Main Events, with whom he has agreed to stay with after spending the past month listening to offers from about 10 other promotional firms.
Wladimir Klitschko
Klitschko
Klitschko-Brock will formally be announced Sept. 19 in New York, Klitschko adviser Shelly Finkel told ESPN.com.
Finkel had offered Brock the fight early in the summer, but Brock didn't like the terms and opted to fight Timor Ibragimov instead in a June HBO fight. After Brock won, he said Finkel made another offer.
"They came back a second time and it still wasn't right," Brock said.
Finally, when Finkel couldn't finalize a unification fight between Klitschko (46-3, 41 KOs) and Oleg Maskaev, and Shannon Briggs walked away from the fight in order to pursue a shot at the title held by Sergei Liakhovich, he went back to Brock.
This time, the seven-figure deal had been tweaked enough for Brock to bite.
"Brock is a better fight for the public, anyway," Finkel said, referring to Briggs' surprise exit from the picture. "If Wladimir knocks Briggs right out, Briggs was a bum. If Briggs gives him a hard time, they'll say Klitschko's not that good. It was a very hard thing to do, either way. Brock is a fresh face and an undefeated top contender. It's a good fight. There is nothing negative about it."
Klitschko will be making the first defense of the title he won via knockout of Chris Byrd in April in Germany.
Brock said he'd like to be the fighter to break the stranglehold that fighters from the former Soviet Union have on the four major titles.
"It means something to me because the public is itching and demanding to have a U.S. heavyweight champion and I would like to be the one, which will make me a more popular champion," Brock said. "But I don't look at it as added pressure."
Brock (29-0, 22 KOs) certainly will be an underdog against Klitschko, but he is unfazed.
"I think he's very good and everything he has received, he deserves it," Brock said. "But I don't see anything in him I haven't seen before in the amateurs, the pros or in sparring. There's nothing he has that I don't have an answer for. Therefore, I am very confident I will win. But he's a good champion, athletic, good power, good skills. Of all the champions, he's the best."
Brock said he enjoyed being recruited by other promoters -- something he never had a taste of as an unwanted boxer coming out of the 2000 Olympics -- but is happy to be returning to Main Events.
"Main Events is the promoter that got me all the way to the title shot," he said. "They also offered the best terms and the best deal. They're the ones I felt the most comfortable with. I like them, I felt comfortable with them and they got me this far.
"But I enjoyed the experience of talking to all the other promoters to the fullest. It was more of a self-gratification thing. I wanted to see what I was worth. It was what I missed out on when I came out of the Olympics when all of the promoters were running after the other boxers and not me. So it felt great to be the hottest thing in the heavyweight division and have them all calling me."
Main Events, which suffered blows recently with disastrous losses by franchise fighters Fernando Vargas and Arturo Gatti, is happy to keep Brock in the fold.
"It's our belief that he will beat Klitschko and we will have the real heavyweight champion," Main Events' Carl Moretti said. "You want to finish what you started, and we've been with Calvin for a long time. You want to see the cake rise after you have put all the ingredients in."
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