By Ron Borges

There are no excuses left any more.

Not for Hasim Rahman or John Ruiz or Chris Byrd or Lamon Brewster. Not for any of the reigning heavyweight champions or their promoter, Don King, either. There aren't even any for most of the heavyweight contenders without a championship portfolio, like James Toney or Calvin Brock or Samuel Peter. There is always some excuse for Wladimir Klitschko and his sly manager, Shelly Finkel, but that is beside the point now because the heavyweight door has been thrown open and it matters not who steps through it as long as someone does.

With the surprising announcement that World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko had decided to retire less than a week after tearing a ligament in his right knee that postponed for the fourth time his scheduled Nov. 12 fight with Rahman and probably cost him his title, the dank and dormant division got a breath of fresh air because none of them can hide like mushrooms any longer.

They can make excuses. They can squabble over money. But they can't hide any more because none of them is worth a dime without the others and there's no third party out there where any of them can hold out hope for big money gained as much by avoidance as confrontation.

With the elder Klitschko retired and Rahman soon to be declared the WBC champion, King now holds title to all four of the recognized heavyweight belt holders. There is no one to negotiate with over options or site fees or foreign television rights or even rematch clauses unless Byrd wins a lawsuit next week designed to break his contract with King. But why would he want to do that now with King holding all the cards in the division? Even someone who would think it wise to turn down $3.6 million to fight the younger Klitschko because he didn't want to go to Germany would seem able to see what is ahead of King - which is domination of the division like no one has had since he held the promotional rights to Mike Tyson.

King is already talking of a Rahman-Toney fight in February followed by a tournament beginning in the spring designed to crown one world champion. Even with the inherent mandatory defense problems a man faces once he holds all the titles, simply having survived such a two fight or four fight tournament would legitimize the winner more than anyone since Lennox Lewis last held the most important championship out there - the one in the eyes of the public.

Ruiz, for one, insisted he was not surprised to see Klitschko retire rather than face Rahman and he loudly proclaimed he was willing to face any of the other champions after his Dec. 17 fight in Germany with WBA No. 1 contender Nicolay Valuev Dec. 17 in Berlin. This is something he's said all along and for all his stylistic faults no one can argue that point with him.

"It's only natural to see him quit,'' Ruiz said of Klitschko. "He quit before (when he refused to come out after the ninth round because of a shoulder injury 5 1/2 years ago against Byrd). I was expecting it. For sure he didn't want to fight (Hasim) Rahman. It proves I was right about him all along. It's an embarrassment to the people who put him on a pedestal and it's an embarrassment to Vitali himself. I always felt he only wanted to fight nobodies."

"King has all the champions now so I don't see why we can't have one champion in a couple of fights. I'll definitely fight them all. I fought Rahman. I fought (Evander) Holyfield three times. I fought (Andrew) Golota and (Fres) Oquendo and (Kirk) Johnson. They were all supposed to beat me. I fought (Roy) Jones. I been trying to fight Byrd for a while. I'll fight any one of them in a unification fight.''

But not long after saying that Ruiz said he didn't believe some of his colleagues were as willing as he to accept such a challenge because some seemed far more focused on money and self-preservation than on giving the sport what it so desperately needs - one heavyweight champion willing to gamble on himself for glory.

"Nobody wants to fight anybody but me,'' Ruiz proclaimed. "They all need a lot of money to get them into the ring. Don't get me wrong. The money is great but this is my last chance to become undisputed champion. I'm looking at the history part of it now. I'd love to be the first undisputed Latino heavyweight champion in boxing history."

"The division needs one champion. It's dying. Nobody cares about the heavyweights any more. Klitschko wouldn't fight anyone who might beat him. The fans are focusing on the lower divisions because when those guys say they're going to fight each other it happens. That's what we need to do.''

With Klitschko no longer holding the WBC title and King in control of all four champions there's no reason why that couldn't become a reality in short order if there is a willingness on all sides, as there was a few years back among the middleweight champions, to crown one man. King could match the four champions on one card or spread them over two shows with the winners then fighting for the undisputed title. To add to the interest he could stage an elaborate coin toss to decide the original seedings, thereby using the power of television to drum up increased interest in the first round of fights.

He could also stage an undercard featuring some of the prime contenders or even take it one step farther and make it an eight-man field with two cards of two fights each cutting the field to four men then one more big show to cut it down to the last two. The final show would then be the one for the undisputed heavyweight title.

The latter may involve too many bodies to suit either King or the fighters because it would eliminate some potential future challengers and involve outside promoters so the four-man tournament is probably more practical. Then all King would have to do is get financial backing from HBO and several casino sites or, if he chose, produce the shows himself on KingVision and make his own distribution deal. There is more risk in the latter and King is as risk averse as any of the reigning champions so he would prefer by far HBO's deep pockets guaranteeing him huge rights fees but with Klitschko out of the picture for now the cable giant might be reluctant for fear someone like Ruiz, who to be kind is not a telegenic fighter, might win.

Yet King insisted this week it wouldn't matter who won because the process itself would legitimize the man left standing. "Mercenary me could milk all four of these championships for a lot of money,'' King said. "I got $2 million out of Germany when I took Brewster there (last month to defend the WBO title). I got another $2 million to take Johnny Ruiz over there next month. After 37 years, I'm back out there promoting in foreign countries."

"But I'm ready to let these guys fight to crown one champion if they're willing to do it. It would be good for the sport. That's how Tyson became Tyson. He beat everybody else. We may have to swim through the shark-infested waters of the organizations to get it by the organizations but they will see it's for the betterment of boxing. Critics may say the people don't want to watch John Ruiz but if he faces every foe and prevails the people will recognize him."

"It would be great for the sport. It needs one heavyweight champion. Let's face it, the heavyweight division is in the doldrums. This is a way for the people to see these guys fight each other. That's what the people want. They want to see the best fighting the best.''

Although none of the champions will ever be considered among the best who ever fought each brings something to the table. Rahman and Brewster can punch. Byrd is the longest reigning champion, having held his title since 2002, and is the most artful boxer of the four. Ruiz is the first Latino ever to hold a portion of the title and although he does not fight with a style that's pleasing to his main constituency, it's likely they would rally around him if he was in such a two-fight tournament.

Another intriguing aspect is even after it was finished other fighters like the younger Klitschko, Brock, Peter and perhaps the by now healed elder Klitschko would be available to challenge the new champion. If King were really lucky, perhaps one of the defeated ex-champions would also have fought courageously enough to convince the public it wants to see him get a second shot at this newly undisputed champion.

The possibilities are limitless but the pitfalls are many because this is boxing, a place where logic and common sense seldom surface. Vitali Klitschko has done what he could to change that dynamic by retiring after suffering with thigh, back and then knee injuries that convinced him it was time to walk away at 34 because he was looking at being out of the ring for nearly two years by the time he would be fit enough to fight again.

"It was a very bad (knee) injury,'' said promoter Bob Arum, who had won the purse bid to stage Klitschko-Rahman. "He was told it would take six months of rehab before he could begin sparring. That's nine months before he could fight again after a layoff of 11 months already. You're talking about nearly two years of not boxing. I tried to talk him out of retiring. I told him to just give up the title because they were going to take it any way and see how he felt after his rehabilitation but he just felt his body kept breaking down and he couldn't live with that.''

In a prepared statement, Klitschko confirmed that while insisting the decision to leave the unique playing field of heavyweight boxing was not an easy one, despite some like Rahman and Ruiz who have long questioned his willingness to fight anyone of substance if he could avoid them.

"Lately, I have been spending more time with my injuries than with my opponents inside the ring,'' the statement from Klitschko said. "The decision to retire from professional sports was a very difficult one, one of the hardest I have ever had to make. I love boxing and am proud to be the WBC and RING (magazine's undisputed) heavyweight champion but I would like to end my career at its peak so I am retiring now as the champion to clear the way for my successors.''

For the short term that would be Rahman but King is already plotting a way to match him with Toney, who defeated Ruiz earlier this year only to test positive for performance enhancing drugs and have that WBA title stripped from him and returned to Ruiz. King hopes to make that fight for February and what would be better for Toney and Rahman, who was defeated by Ruiz in an earlier WBA title fight, to take on the WBA champion next since both feel they have unfinished business with him and the winner would have a title and a chance to add a second belt to his collection?

Then King could match a clear contrast in styles on the other side of the tournament with the power punching Brewster forced to face his fleet-footed cousin Byrd in a real family feud? Story lines would abound and if the entire thing was already set up so there could be no glitches moving on the public would have renewed curiosity at least if not real interest in the division if for no other reason than to see who finally emerges at the end of it all.

Certainly such a tournament can't hurt, which in itself would be a first for a division seemingly obsessed with self-immolation. "We can get some fights going if these guys want to fight,'' King said this week. "God did what Don King could not. He got Klitschko out of the way. If the rest of these guys don't want to fight each other, I'm not going to protect them. I'll let the world know what heavyweights want to fight.''

Ron Borges is an award-winning sports writer for the Boston Globe and a contributor to BoxingScene.com.