By Matthew Sanderson

Following a couple of compelling battles, it’s become clear that the heavyweight division, as maligned as it has been, can be a pretty watchable. Despite lacking a dominant champion with all the tools, the like of which we’ve not seen since Lennox Lewis retired, we don’t have to feel guilty for revelling in the chaos. James Toney and Hasim Rahman, and particularly Serguei Liakhovich and Lamon Brewster, might be deeply flawed fighters, but when matched against the right foe, are capable of serving up a cracking good show.

As they did over the past few weeks.

That, of course, could easily turn pear shaped should someone like John Ruiz, Fres Oquendo or the disappointing giant Nicolay Valuev (the current WBA champion after a dubious win over Ruiz) be entered into the equation. But let’s deal with that if, and when, it happens – by tuning out.

Those who tuned in to Showtime the Saturday before last may have expected Lamon Brewster to feast on his fourth Eastern European foe from his last five fights (recovering from four rounds of hell to flatted Wladimir Klitschko, stopping Andrew Golota in a round and catching up to Luan Krasniqi in the ninth of a thriller), but the rugged Indianapolis fighter met his match against the Belarusian – who overcame a fierce fifth round hammering and a deflating seventh round knockdown to outwork his man. His willingness to trade could make his reign a short one, but it won him the WBO heavyweight title in some style and plenty of new fans in the process.

Two weeks before that, on HBO, James Toney squandered his chance of becoming a four-weight world champion, by showing up in hideous shape for his challenge to WBC champion by default (after ‘heir allegedly’ Vitali Klitschko retired), Hasim Rahman, who outworked him over 12 rounds, only to settle for a draw. But ‘Lights Out’ did some good, classy work along the way, scoring the cleaner blows in the face of Rahman’s more consistent, reliable pressure that should have been rewarded with a ‘W’. One has to worry for Toney, who it seems cannot do great work without shooting himself in the foot afterward: despite his marvellous 2003 comeback, he has only won one from his last three bouts since. Toney’s lazy slip and counter style wasn’t enough to win, but hey he did enough to make it a decent, world-class scrap.

The throne might be vacant, but left to their own devices, the current big men can certainly fight. The division might have been unwatchable at times since Lennox cut Vitali’s face to ribbons, but the heavyweights are, for the moment, the guilty pleasure of the sport.

Prior to Brewster-Liakhovich, one needed to look back to 2004 for the last truly outstanding heavyweight battle, when Chris Byrd overcame massive size and weight disadvantages against his good friend Jameel McCline, slugging through some very rough moments to squeak by on a split decision and, as has become the norm, barely retain his title. Brewster-Liakhovich was arguably better, in that it featured some far meatier, better-delivered punches from both sides. Looking extremely loose and relaxed, Serguei eased through the first four rounds by dint of his superior repertoire and Brewster’s refusal to put his shots together. But after suffering under crippling barrages of hooks in the fifth and seventh frames, the challenger’s ability to not only rally back, but also dissuade Lamon from taking too many liberties, really impressed me.

Granted, Brewster can be exasperating in his tendency to not let his hands go, and this feeling of frustration was compounded by just how powerful Lamon looked on the rare occasions he let rip. But Lyakhovic hasn’t been getting enough credit for the diligent work he did to Brewster’s body in the early going. The unconventional lead rights to the fleshy gut, that surprised viewers almost as much as Brewer, were used to a magnificent sense of purpose late in the fight. In the middle stages, when the slow to get going Brewster sought to hurt his man, Liakhovich needed merely to whack Brewster’s softened up left side again to put him in place. Given that the left hook is Brewster’s deadliest weapon, the Belarusian’s method of taking that shot away by brutalising the left side of his body gave him a route back into the fight when it looked as if he might be overwhelmed by sickening power punches, and punctuated some dramatic back and forth exchanges that usually ended with Lamon, visibly suffering, taking a bit f a hiding.

Toney, of course, also took a bit of a body beating, at the hands of Hasim Rahman’s right hook on March 18, which battered his own left side with borderline kidney shots, spurring the Detroit born fighter to protest to the WBC for a rematch – to deaf ears, thankfully, since Toney was given his chance at the expense of Oleg Maskaev, who won a WBC title eliminator against Sinan Samil Sam last year, and the back on form fighter is notorious for stopping Rahman. Hitting the one area that the defensive wizard Toney regularly leaves exposed (particularly when he slips punches and shifts his weight onto his right side) was quite a smart move by ‘The Rock’, who despite fighting down to Toney (the veteran middleweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight champion likes nothing better for opponents to come into his zone so that he can counter them) managed to wear down a man who was badly conditioned enough as it was. As the judges saw it, obviously impressed by his noisier single blows, all Toney had to do was win the final round to join old foe Roy Jones as a four weight champ who started collecting championship belts at 160-lbs in the early ‘90s. If Rahman couldn’t impress the judges enough to win the fight, at least he prevented Toney from doing so.

While it was a close affair, what swung it further in Rahman’s favor, for me, was on the basis of ring generalship. With Toney becoming ever more predictable, wanting to slip punches and find a way in for his booming right hand, Rahman was smart to get his left arm inside Toney’s right arm, pretty much cutting off his foe’s choice punch – making the alleged smartest boxer in the game look remarkably short of ideas late on.

No, the heavyweights aren’t great. But at least they can deal with the ex-middleweights nowadays. Just about.