On the eve of his twenty-fourth birthday, Volodymyr Klychko gave himself a present, the WBC Intercontinental champion’s belt. On March 18, in Hamburg’s overcrowded Alsterdorfer Sporthalle, he knocked out the Tonga colossus, Paea Wolfgram, in the 92nd second.
The 130 kilogram Wolfgram, who had earlier won 13 out of 19 bouts by knockout and lost only one, held out 102 seconds. Then came a thirty second assault and eight blows of the 110 kilo Ukrainian athlete into his rival’s head, and the colossus fell. Paea was able to rise only six minutes later. Volodymyr’s blow again, as it did in the final 1996 Atlanta Olympic fight, drew blood from Paea’s nose and cut his left cheek.
Klychko the Younger ran his thumb over his own nose, as if showing the lying Wolfgram: he had answered the Tonga athlete’s cocksure statements. Speaking before the match of what had caused his defeat at the Olympics, Paea laid special emphasis on the fact that his nose had been broken in the semifinals and this is why Volodymyr’s punch into the bridge of his nose decided the outcome of that bout (Klychko won 7-5 on points). But now “I will meet and knock him flat into the ring. This will be a revenge for my defeat in the Atlanta Olympics!”
“This fight is a revenge. Wolfgram’s revenge for his 1996 Olympic defeat,” Volodymyr confirmed on the eve of the match. However, “It’s useless to waste time on words. Everything will be clear on the ring. The fight won’t be easy. I will come out into the ring with only one aim, to win!!!”
To the surprise of many, Volodymyr’s win was too pat. His brother Vitaly’s gestures — well, brothers should support each other — also show that nobody expected such a fast championship. Volodymyr said on the eve of the bout he was “ready to fight all the twelve rounds on the ring.” His brother Vitaly was more exact: “Volodymyr is prepared to fight all twelve rounds in the ring, but if he sees even the slightest opportunity to end the bout ahead of time, he won’t miss the chance.” However, very few might have planned a victory in the first round at least for the reason that the next fight for the title of world champion will be against Lennox Lewis. It will be fantastically difficult to knock him out in the first rounds, and, as the bitter experience of the eleven round bout versus the American Ross Purity showed, Volodymyr’s fast victories have, unfortunately, their seamier side: lack of the experience in lengthy bouts.
What is also pleasant is that after the literally crushing victory on the Hamburg ring Volodymyr thanked all Ukrainian television viewers for the energy he felt during the fight.
“After eight weeks of training, Volodymyr can come out on the ring and beat Lewis,” Fritz Zdunek, Volodymyr’s and Vitaly’s coach, told the post-match press conference. The 70-year-old Steve Ishler, Paea Wolfgram’s manager and a widely-respected boxing authority, said: “Frankly speaking, I thought earlier that Volodymyr Klychko would be able to do nothing in a fight against Lewis. All Volodymyr could hope for in this match was defeat. But now I am sure Volodymyr can really rob Lennox of one of his belts. I will put my money only on Volodymyr in their fight.” Paea Wolfgram confined himself to four words: “Volodymyr hit very painfully!”
