Klitschko Page #6

Klitschko holds on.

COMMENTATOR 1:
And guess what

guys? He can take a punch, too!

COMMENTATOR 2:

And he's got heart!

(BELL DINGS)

PEARLMAN:
On a scale from one to 10,

this cut was probably about an eight.

Ten is an arterial cut

that has arterial blood squirting out

and blood's all over the ring,

all over the fighter's face.

The main danger of

a cut like this is that

it continues to become larger

during the fight.

And it could have

torn his tear duct

or could have injured

the muscles of his eye,

which could have

been a permanent injury.

So the discussion was

whether or not to stop the fight.

(FRITZ SPEAKING GERMAN)

I don't have good

memories of that moment.

The ring doctor

had a look at it and said, "Stop the fight!"

The fight has been stopped,

because of the damage

to Vitali Klitschko's eye.

No!

No! No!

(FALK SPEAKING GERMAN)

I think that

everyone in the hall wanted the fight to go on.

I then realised that

the injury was serious

and that they did it

for his own good.

All respect to the doctor

for standing up to Vitali's brother

and Vitali himself,

who was ready to tear him apart.

Despite the loss,

an extremely memorable fight,

a tremendous action battle.

The kind of fight that

fight fans want to see in a heavyweight fight.

And even though it was

not the outcome that Vitali wanted,

he knows that he gained immeasurable

respect from the American public.

And my good friend Larry Merchant from

HBO put it best after that fight,

I always remember that, that "Lennox Lewis

won the fight, Vitali won the event."

(LOUD APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)

EMANUEL:
So he became

a guy who was known

as a gallant warrior

after that fight.

And that is still 'cause

he isn't doing nothing that much dramatic,

if you think of it,

even in all of his great victories that he's had.

But that fight is what

really lifted his whole image

more than any fight

that he's had.

PEARLMAN:
This wound was

sewn up in several layers,

because it went

down through the muscle into the soft tissue.

And you usually need

to do several layers.

So there may have

been 60 stitches

on the outside and

I don't remember

how many stitches there were.

(WLADIMIR SPEAKING GERMAN)

Boxing is no joke.

It's brutal and dangerous.

What I want is for

people to see both sides.

They go to an event

and underestimate the opponent.

Each and every

opponent is dangerous.

That's been proven

time and again,

like when legendary

boxer Max Schmeling

beat Joe Louis,

who was unbeaten at that point.

That was a surprise.

Like Mike Tyson in Japan

losing against Buster Douglas

or when I lost

against Corrie Sanders.

He was supposedly past it

and no one thought he had it in him.

There are lots of cases

in heavyweight boxing

where one punch can

decide everything.

WBO TITLE DEFENCE

WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO

vs. CORRIE SANDERS

March 8th, 2003

I lay there on the canvas

and I was so angry!

I thought, "You squirt!

You can't do that to me."

My ego had been bulldozed!

I wanted revenge.

(BERND BOENTE SPEAKING)

Wladimir's mistake was

that he didn't use his jab

and wait for the right moment.

Instead, he thought,

"I can't believe it. He got me!"

BERND BOENTE:

MANAGER OF THE KLITSCHKO BROTHERS

And he just went

straight at him without blocking.

Corrie Sanders was a real pro.

He was just waiting for that

and he can punch like a horse.

It doesn't matter if a boxer

is seen as the underdog.

Any boxer with

enough power in his punch

can end the fight

with a single blow,

and that one second

can turn the fight around.

Boxing is such a rough sport.

I've had four surgeries

and I gotta have one more

to try to replace my cornea

and hopefully that'll give me my vision back.

LAMON BREWSTER BLINDED

AFTER A FIGH:

AGAINST ROBER HELENIUS IN 2010

If you don't have

nothing else in life, if you don't have a family,

if you don't have money,

if you don't have any job,

no opportunity,

you can do boxing.

I don't understand why

the Klitschkos would choose boxing,

when there are so

many other things.

They are smart guys.

They could have been doctors,

they could have been lawyers.

I would have

taken the easy road.

Hey, I commend them.

They didn't have

to come down here

with people like myself,

but they did.

(WLADIMIR SPEAKING GERMAN)

A year later I got a chance

at the world title again.

I trained for it

in Los Angeles, together with Vitali.

We both wanted to become

world champions at the same time.

That had never happened before

in the history of heavyweight boxing.

In terms of technique,

Brewster was a good match for me.

Klitschko gets the jab

and the left hook going in,

rocks Brewster back.

WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO vs.

LAMON BREWSTER - April 10th, 2004

This becomes target

practise at that range!

Wladimir was throwing a tremendous number

of punches for a heavyweight

and, um,

and he was vulnerable to be hit

back when Brewster could survive.

It was one of those

sudden turnabouts

that sometimes

happens in prizefighting

and Wladimir himself

never fully reconciled

exactly what happened.

COMMENTATOR:

with a huge left hook.

And Wladimir is

in trouble now.

(SPEAKING GERMAN)

Then I heard the bell

and the referee came between us,

and I felt my balance going.

I had to keep

moving to stay upright.

I stumbled over

the referee's foot and was down.

Then I just felt I

couldn't get up any more.

And now Robert Byrd stops the fight.

Robert Byrd takes a look

at Wladimir Klitschko

and decides he can't continue

and stops the fight.

(WLADIMIR SPEAKING GERMAN)

This woman was

looking into my eyes.

I couldn't keep my head up

or open my eyes properly.

She just said,

"His pupils are dilated.

"I think he's had

a brain haemorrhage."

(SIREN WAILING)

I remember being

in the ambulance and hearing the siren.

My brother was next to me

and I couldn't speak,

but I just about

managed to say,

"I'm sorry, brother.

I messed up."

when wladimir was in the hospital,

Vitali was on the phone

really crying and sobbing with his

mother, it was just a very bad moment.

(NADESHDA SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

I saw a new side to Vitali.

He wanted to

spare my feelings,

so he decided not to

tell me the whole truth.

He carried the burden

of it all on his own.

(WLADIMIR SPEAKING GERMAN)

An hour later, I woke up.

I was able to speak again.

I got up and

left the hospital.

The next morning

Vitali and I were on the plane

and Vitali said,

"Take a look in the mirror.

"I think that's the end

of your boxing career.

"Think about it long and hard,

but I think it's over."

I and wladimir were walking down

a street in New

York going to eat

and this guy comes up,

like a little street guy,

and he goes,

"How are you doing, Mr. Steward?"

And so I say,

"Yeah, how are you doing, man?"

"Klitschko, man, yeah,

that was a hell of a fight with Lennox, man.

"I loved you, man,

you're tough.

"You my kind of guy,

you're a street guy, man."

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes