Thanks ESPN Classic for airing the world heavyweight championship!

Okay, so it was a thoroughly predictable thrashing. Even the TKO would have been easy to call, though I think I would have called it as an eighth or ninth round KO by sheer attrition. The most undramatic ascension to the current version of the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world (the Ring version) took place on Saturday and U.S. fightfans hardly cared or noticed. Even this realfightfan had to find it on fight day to Tivo it and was surprised to find it being shown on ESPN Classic.

I thought B.J. Flores did a decent job as the color man for the bout and was better than his accompaniment who seemed a bit of the master of the obvious. B.J.'s pointing out of the foot position problems that Chagaev was failing to overcome was as interesting as his cohort's seemingly disconnected injection of Chagaev's testing positive for hepatitis B seemed contrived and out of context. B.J. didn't bite and it made it seem awkward.

Did I mention that this fight took place in Germany before 60,000 live fans in a soccer stadium or that it was between Ring #1 heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko and Ring #3 Ruslan Chagaev? Setting aside that Chagaev was a last minute (about three weeks before fight night) replacement for David Haye, Chagaev brought a very arguably better set of credentials to fight for the title. Indeed, his involvement allowed the Ring Heavyweight Championship to be awarded for the first time since 2004. I should again give props to ESPN for prominently featuring this fact and repeatedly mentioning that the Ring Heavyweight Championship was on the line. Under the Ring rules, the Championship belt can only be awarded when the champion or #1 and #2 or in limited circumstances #3 Ring contenders fight.

This fight clearly qualified if for no other reason than that the #2 ranked contender is Wladimir's brother Vitali. No one who appreciates the sweet science really wants to see that anyway, in my opinion. After all, this isn't tennis, where the Williams sisters can fret publicly and privately about their rivalry, the press can play it up, they compete in a finals and then have dinner afterward. Our sport is a brutal expression of domination. Put simply, the Williams sisters don't have to punch each other in the face over and over until one of them collapses to collect their paycheck. The Klitschko brothers say they never will and I for one have no desire to see it. In our beloved sport, we deal with all the hypothetical matchups that history has to offer, so one more such matchup among contemporary brothers shouldn't bother anyone.

As to the fight, well Ruslan never stood a chance. He was able to bob and weave his way inside against the man mountain Valuev evidently, but never had a chance against the "robotic" Klitschko. Well...it's hard to blame Wladimir for playing the robot if the robot kicks your ass. And the robot thoroughly kicked Ruslan Chagaev's ass. "Dr. Steelhammer" pumped the left jab all night, following up with a straight right hand and simply punished Chagaev over and over. Chagaev was cut midway through the fight over his left eye and while that tacitly acted as the basis of the TKO stoppage, that wasn't it. It was the punishment Chagaev was enduring and while the doctor was checking out his eye, Chagaev's trainer leaned over and whispered in his fighter's ear. It must've been "you've had enough, I'm putting a stop to this."

That was a good call. It was no context and Chagaev had no answers. His olympic pedigree, undefeated record coming in and alphabet championship belt couldn't get him past that left jab. I agree with B.J. that it's a mystery why Chagaev didn't try to move to his right to escape the big right hand, to set up his own left hook and maybe punish Klitschko's body under his left arm to bring that jab down. Easy for me to say, perhaps...but it looked like he didn't even try. Maybe it would have made no difference at all, but it seemed a sounder strategy than the one that made him a punching bag for nine rounds until he retired on his stool rather than come out for the tenth. I didn't score it, but didn't have to. Every round for Klitschko with the second round being 10-8 for Klitschko's knockdown of Chagaev on a flush straight right.

So where does the heavyweight division go from here? Well, I agree that the Klitschko v. Haye fight is interesting, but I think Haye stands little chance. He is chinny and very likely to get KO'd. He brings a punch, even a heavyweight punch...but Klitschko today is not the Wladimir of yesterday. He hasn't seemed as easy to rattle. He rose three times against Peter to win by decision and has kept learning what Steward has been teaching him: be willing to win on points; don't take chances; go with what works; avoid your weaknesses; don't try to please critics. That is the Lennox Lewis blueprint and as criticized as he was for his lack of aggression and killer instinct in his career, he is now lionized as the last great heavyweight champion.

It's picky to write this when I'm pleased that ESPN broadcast the fight at all, considering what must have been a cast off by HBO once Haye withdrew...but their running of the scoreboard crawl below the fight during the broadcast was a poor decision. It was distracting, annoying and it interfered with my enjoyment of the fight. I love ESPN, appreciate their commitment to the fight game and again...that they broadcast this fight (even if they didn't send the first string...apologies again to B.J. who did a good job, especially for an active fighter!), but next time guys...lose the crawl.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Chris Arreola can do against Wladimir. Can he do more? I don't know, but I bet he was watching this fight and going , "why isn't he working to bring that jab down????look at where his front foot is??? why is he not circling right??? Shoooot...this guy can be beat!!!" Can he? I don't know. For all his robotics, Wladimir Klitschko looks like a pretty tough model.