By Ron Borges

Nikolai Valuev took a giant step Saturday night. Unfortunately for him and for promoter Don King it only came when he stepped over the ropes at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. rather than slipping between them, as is the sport's long-held tradition.

After that it was baby steps for the 7-foot, 328 pound World Boxing Association heavyweight champion, who was fighting in the United States for the first time in five years and for the first time ever on HBO, the biggest cable outlet in boxing. Whether he'll be asked back is anyone's guess but certainly he did not deliver the kind of knockout performance the heavyweight division is longing for from someone. Anyone, really.

Somehow it seems whichever one of the four beltholders you are watching at the moment makes you long for the other three...until you see them in action. Then the roles are reversed but always the same thing seems to emerge - a sad longing for someone to come along who will remind you that the heavyweight champion was once the most revered athlete in sports.

Today the division is not even the most revered weight class in boxing, having been replaced for the moment at least by far more skilled practitioners of the dark art in the lighter divisions like Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Marco Antonio Barrera, Manny Pacquiao, Winky Wright, Miguel Cotto, Jermain Taylor and Bernard Hopkins. They have not done this solely on their own, but rather with the acquiescence of a generation of potential heavyweights who have turned their backs on boxing to pursue careers in the NFL, NBA and these days even in major league baseball. To be fair, that is not the fault of the towering champion from St. Petersburg, Russia however. He is what he is - which is big. What he isn't he can probably do little about.

After several weeks traversing America at King's insistence trying to sell his arrival as what King inelegantly called "the Eighth Wonder of the World,'' Valuev kept his undefeated string alive by stopping journeyman Monte Barrett in the 11th round at the Allstate Arena outside of Chicago last Saturday night. It was a victory and in the end that is boxing's bottom line but it was not the kind of scintillating performance either Valuev or HBO had been hoping for.

Both the fighter and the men investing in him were praying for a spectacular knockout, the kind of battering that might turn Valuev into a feared factor in the division, a man of legendary size and performance, rather than a clone of Primo Carnera, a circus act of the 1930s known as "The Ambling Alp'' because of his slow-footed progress around the ring in fights whose outcomes were most often prearranged. Valuev is no Carnera to be fair but he's no Louis either, be it Joe Louis or Lennox Lewis.

What the American got in its first glimpse at Valuev was 11 rounds in which the champion cuffed the wild-swinging Barrett around from time to time, even flooring him once with an uppercut that referee John O'Brien somehow totally missed and called a slip in Round 8, but most often simply hugged and held him until he'd squeezed the life out of poor Barrett.

After four rounds Barrett, who seemed to momentarily stun Valuev in the opening round with one of what would become a night full of wild overhand rights, led on the judges cards but after that he didn't win a round. He wore out faster than a cheap pair of slacks and once he got tagged with that unseen uppercut in Round 8 he began to resemble a balloon with a slow leak.

Each round thereafter Barrett grew ever more listless, the spring gone from his legs and his desperation more evident as The Big Galoot kept walking toward him and most often hitting him with a jab, missing with a right hand and then clutching Barrett until O'Neil told him to unhand him. When he did, Valuev would push Barrett away like a bad piece of fish, dismissing him both with disdain and enough of a repelling effect as to help continue the corrosion of Barrett's will and his energy.

Barrett did all he could for as long as he could but he was nine inches shorter than Valuev, outweighed by 105 1/2 pounds and suffered with a seven inch reach disadvantage, meaning Valuev could crack him with his jab and still be more than a half foot beyond Barrett's punching range. That is a distinct advantage to anyone, even a fighter with the crude skills of Valuev.

"One thing I do have is a lot of heart,'' the 6-3, 222 1/2 pound Barrett said after the bout was stopped at 2:12 of the 11th round after he'd been knocked down twice. O'Neill was apparently not sufficiently impressed by that to step between the two fighters however so Barrett's trainer, James Bashir, did. He climbed between the ropes and into the ring after the second knockdown, stopping the fight by wrapping his arms around his beaten boxer while Valuev looked on with a sad expression until he did a little dance step when he realized what was happening.

"I was trying to bring it to him but I couldn't find my range,'' Barrett (31-5) would say later. "I worked hard. Much respect goes to him.'' Time will tell if that respect emanates from the American public but there seems only minimal chance of that because the fight had long stretches with little or no real action interspersed with a few moments when Valuev would slam his long jab into Barrett just often enough to wear him down until he finally clubbed him to the floor. Seldom did either man land any sharp punches, not even in the round when Valuev (45-0, 33 KO) would twice drop the tiring Barrett, first with a short right hook behind a missed left and later with a slow-moving flurry of blows.

Each time Barrett arose with tired eyes and shaky legs and retreated toward the ropes as Valuev stalked him like a not so jolly red giant, looking to land a punch he seldom threw, an uppercut at close range that had stopped Owen Beck quickly in the champion's last appearance in April.

Finally he dropped one on Barrett, who was by now not throwing punches at all but merely hoping to avoid them. When that half uppercut, half hook found its target, Barrett fell to the floor a second time, his eyes clear but his body spent. When he pulled himself up again Valuev understood what he had in front of him - a helpless opponent worn out from 10 rounds spent grasping Valuev and only occasionally hitting him.

Two left hands and another right and Barrett sagged into the ropes again as the crowd of 13,482 roared. When he came off them Valuev hit him again and as he tried to back away from taking more punishment, Bashir rushed into the ring and wrapped him in his arms, thus ending what had been an inelegant performance by both men.

"Monte challenged the champion,'' Bashir would say later of Barrett, who sustained a concussion from those blows. "He did what he could do. Nikolai took some very hard shots. I think this was his stiffest challenge yet. Nikolai Valuev was tested tonight and he stood up to that test. He's the champion. He should be respected.''

Valuev had come to America with high hopes of earning that respect with a spectacular debut on HBO. He got the knock out he and promoters King and Germany's Wilfried Sauerland had hoped for but by the time it came spectators had been forced to endure long rounds of holding and inaction only occasional interrupted by a wildly looping overhand right by Barrett or Valuev's underused hard jab and occasional straight right behind it.

"To be honest, I was a little nervous,'' Valuev admitted. "I haven't fought in the US for a long time. This was a whole new thing for me. I need to settle down more."

"The victory wasn't easy today. Monte really tried hard. Monte really gave me a tough fight. He showed me what real American boxing is. I knew after four or five rounds I would  win but my trainer said I made many mistakes.''

The biggest one may have been exposing him to an American television audience rather than leaving him as an unseen mystery man from Russia, a giant who fights out of Germany, where he won the title from then champion John Ruiz last December in disputed but unseen fashion here in America.

After Saturday night, Germany is very likely where he will return for a time, although King insisted his giant had proven "he's not an ordinary man. He's an extraordinary man. No one said he was Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ken Norton but he's growing. When I say 'the Eighth Wonder of the World' I ain't kidding.

     

"What Monte did was define Nikolai. Big as he is, after four or five rounds your reflexes become discombobulated. He's ready to take on anybody. Anybody who can punch will give (IBF champion Wladimir) Klitschko a problem. Niko got a punch. No question.''

     

But does he?

Certainly Valuev can grind a man into pumice merely by leaning on him round after tiring round, his 328 pounds feeling like a brick wall had begun to tilt on you and you were trying to hold it back. Eventually, unless reinforcements come, you get crushed, a fate that may befall Valuev one day. But not on this day.

"Niko hasn't fought many times at this level,'' Sauerland said of his heavyweight champion. "He's still learning his trade. He was a bit nervous. I noticed it in the changing (dressing) room before the fight. He'll get over that and continue to improve. He'll dominate the heavyweight division. I expected him to be a little bit nervous. There was a lot of pressure on Niko. Even though he's big, he's sensitive.''

Big, sensitive guys may be in vogue on the Lifetime channel but they're not thought of all that highly in prize fighting, where sensitivity is tempered considerably by your opponent's desire to render you unconscious as quickly as possible. That is Valuev's goal too and he's done it 33 times in 45 professional fights but now he is at the top of a weakened division and hoping to face WBC champion Oleg Maskaev, or the younger Klitschko, in his next outing. In that regard Sauerland is holding Jan. 27 for German TV. What he has from American TV is a bit more speculative at the moment, to be kind.

"I see Niko fighting sometimes in the United States and sometimes in Europe,'' Sauerland said cautiously. "I know Maskaev wants to fight in Moscow. That would be perfect for us. Personally I'd like the fight with Maskaev. It could be in Russia. It could be in the united States. You could put that on in Europe.''

Whether you can put Nikolai Valuev on in America again soon remains to be seen. It's likely he'd have to be the B side in a fight with either Maskaev or Klitschko. At least he would be until the fight started and his latest victim began to learn what Barrett learned last Saturday night, which is that while there is nothing elegant about Nikolai Valuev, beating him will be a tall order for anyone.

A very tall order indeed.