CALVIN BROCK: ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY

by Ron Borges

Calvin Brock is not a particularly cocky man so his words should be taken in the way he intends them. They are merely a recitation of the facts as his eyes see them and his college-educated mind processes them. They are not an effort at self-aggrandizement or self-promotion or, most importantly, self-delusion. They are, as the old football coach Bill Parcells would say, what they are.

Brock understands why he is a prohibitive underdog in his Nov. 11 showdown with Wladimir Klitschko at Madison Square Garden for the quarter of the heavyweight title Klitschko now wears. He understands it but disagrees with that assessment of his chances and what it says about his skills because he has been living in the dark shadow of other's doubts about him ever since he first tried his hands at boxing at the age of 12 with a father in his corner teaching him the unique skills of his chosen sport from a videotape because he knew nothing much about it himself.

From that halting beginning, Brock went on to lose his first six amateur bouts but still refused to be dissuaded despite growing evidence that the naysayers may have had a point. Instead he pressed on, eventually becoming a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic team and then an undefeated title challenger with 29 straight victories, all of which seemingly having been discounted by his critics.

So when he's asked on a bright fall morning what he thinks of his opponent, who is pretty much universally viewed as the best of a sorry lot of heavyweights, Brock isn't lost for words. There is a halting hesitation in his voice initially, as if his strong Christian beliefus are counseling him against speaking ill of another but finally the battle is won by truth, the words which the Bible say, and Brock believes, will set him free of many things including other's opinions of him.

"I think he's very ordinary,'' Brock said of Klitschko, who is 46-3 but has been knocked out by the likes of Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster and was dropped three times by failed title contender Samuel Peter. "He's beaten very ordinary opponents. Who has he beaten who wasn't ordinary?

Don't get me wrong. He's a big guy and he's got good skills but he's always looking to get in with guys who stand right in front of him to be hit. That won't be the situation with me.

"He ain't been in with a guy as quick as me. Who moves like me or has hand speed like me. He'll get hit more than he's ever been hit before. I see him as regular, man. Klitschko is very ordinary in my opinion. People keep saying he'll get me in trouble but I noticed nobody has gotten into trouble with him once they got him hurt. He's a safe boxer. He doesn't box off reaction. He doesn't counter punch because he can't react. And when he's hurt he doesn't know how to hold on or defend himself. Once you have him hurt you absoutely should finish him. I don't think saying that makes me overconfident. I'm not overconfident. I saw him on tape go down from big punches but I also saw him go down against Sam Peter on his own. He went down when he didn't get hit flush. That showed me a weakness in his heart.

"Klitschko is a smart guy. He knows his weaknesses but he's been doing things one way for so long he won't change. Most boxers are that way. I'm not. When you fight me you can't be sure how I'll fight you because I can box or I can sit down and punch. I'm not trying to tear him down to build me up. Truthfully, he does what he does well but what I said about him is truthful, too.''

What Brock was saying is not that the 6-6 Klitschko is lacking in skill or punching power. With 41 knockouts among his 46 victories it's hard to argue the latter almost regardless of who he's beaten and he did get up three times to beat Peter while also holding two wins, including a stoppage, over former IBF champion Chris Byrd. Yet Brock raises good points about Klitschko, who has always somehow seemed to be less than he outwardly appears.

Brock believes Klitschko is a safety first fighter, a reluctant warrior as it were, because he is. He believes he lacks the ability or willingness to counter punch because he doesn't often counter punch. And up until he survived those knockdowns against Peter he had never been able to get off the deck and win, as Brock did against Jameel McCline. So everything Brock says of Klitschko is backed by indisputeable fact.

"Calvin's got to outbox him to win,'' conceded Carl Moretti, president of the promotinal company Main Events, which handles Brock. "

He's got to be smart and give him angles and make him work. Klitschko was life and death with Sam Peter so if Calvin can extend him into the later rounds who knows? We know Cal has heart, a good chin and boxing ability and I don't think he's fighting Sonny Liston here.''

Yet even with all that said Brock remains a guy considered by many in boxing to be a convenient challenger, one hand picked by Klitschko's people. Perhaps he was but Brock finds such talk bothersome because, like many things said about him, it flies in the face of what he believes the reality of the situaiton to be.

"They were backed into a corner,'' Brock said of what led Klitschko to him. "There were only two boxers on the short list HBO gave them, me and Shannon Briggs. If they thought I was the easier guy why didn't they choose me at the start? They chose Briggs first but when they couldn't agree on money Briggs went off and signed to fight (WBO champion Sergei) Lyakhovich so they had to come to me. I can't believe Wladimir, smart as he is, is underestimating me...but let's hope he is.''

If he is he wouldn't be the only one. Brock has been downgraded by critics seemingly from the first day he laced on gloves when, at 12, he showed up at an amateur tournament, was beaten and heard parents of other fighters asking his parents if they were forcing him to box.

The opposite was actually the case because it was the former (and present) tap dancer who was agitating in their home to become a fighter. Brock decided he wanted to try and could not be dissuaded, not even after early amateur failures, a first round elimination at the Olympics and a start to his professional career that could not have been less enticing for a college graduate with a degree in finance and a budding career in the banking business with Bank of America.

While other Olympians like Ricardo Williams cashed large bonus checks and then crashed and burned professionally, Brock received only $1,500 for his first bout, which was held at an Indian casino outside Elgin, Ill. That was the last time Brock questioned his career path, one that ultimately has taken him to the doorstep of a world title.

"That night in the back room getting dressed behind a curtain I did think 'Here you are lacing on these gloves to fight a guy when you have a college education,'' Brock admitted laughingly. "But even that night I knew nothing else would make me happy. I don't want to look back on my life with regret, wondering what might have happened if I'd worked a little harder for my dream. I always wanted to be heavyweight champion.''

Now Calvin Brock, professional underdog, is one victory away. He is facing a man he respects but who he believes is not what people think, just as he believes he is not what people think either. If he's right by Nov. 12 people will think differently of Wladimir Klitschko and, more importantly, of him. Not surprisingly you, it is only the latter that concerns Calvin Brock.

"I know the day will come when I'm like Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson,'' Brock said. "There's no doubt in my mind. I'm still motivated by all the naysayers. I've already proven everybody wrong just to get this far undefeated. I'll prove the current naysayers wrong, too. Nov. 11 they're going to get their world shocked.''