IVAN DRAGO'S SHADOW

The fictional boxer from Rocky IV whose imposing accent, demeanor and unorthodox training methods threatened to undo Rocky Balboa and the American boxing world. Sometimes truth is closer than fiction. Nat Gottlieb takes a look into the Russian Heavyweight factory.

by Nat Gottlieb

Ivan Drago was very real, we just didn't know it.

Klitschko. Valuev. Lyakhovich. Maskaev. Four fighters born in the former Soviet Union, all have been recent heavyweight champions. If you want to understand how America lost its century-old grip on the heavyweight division, pop in a DVD of Sylvester Stallone's 1985 movie, "Rocky IV." Stallone didn't create Ivan Drago, the sports system of the Soviet Union did.

The New York Times, in its review of the movie, called Drago -- the towering, sculptured Russian boxer -- "a cold, vicious fighting machine." The character was an exaggeration, but far from a boxing terminator. He was a composite portrait of the way Soviet heavyweights were being manufactured in a factory-like system far superior to anything in the U.S.

Although the Soviet Union -- which banned boxers from turning professional -- collapsed in 1991, its methods are still being used in Eastern Europe . The current crop of heavyweight champions are a product of the original system, whose motto could have been: "We build them better."

In a June 2003 interview with Sports Illustrated, Vitali Klitschko, then reigning world champion, joked: "I don't want people to describe me as Ivan Drago. We are completely different. Ivan Drago didn't have a brother, but I do."

Actually, the biggest difference between the 6'7 Klitschko and Drago, was that Vitali was not a direct product of the Soviet boxing system.

"Vitali had been a world kick boxing champion," said Emanuel Steward, who trained the Ukrainian and currently conditions his brother, Wladimir. "He never had a foundation in boxing before he switched to it, and then when he did turn pro, he didn't have the time to get the basics. Vitali would always say, 'My brother started earlier than me learning the basics. He will be better than me."

Wladimir, Sergei Lyakhovich, Oleg Maskaev, and Nikolai Valuev, all were hand-picked as youngsters by a sophisticated Soviet scouting system designed to produce a breed of super athletes.

"It begins in the elementary schools," said Ivaylo Gotzev, a Bulgarian who manages the recently-dethroned champion, Lyakhovich, a Belarusan. "The trainers come around and start checking all the kids out for different sports. Then they send them to special boarding schools, where you basically do nothing but sports. The schools are strictly for athletes."

Not only were the schools allowed by the education system to be athletic hot houses, the state threw its full resources behind them. Each was given state of the art training facilities and the best trainers money could buy. Sports in the Soviet Union was not for recreation, it was a propaganda tool designed to bring prestige to the state, and demonstrate the superiority of the communist system.

Drago, The New York Times said, was "coached by his Government to humiliate the American." In the film Drago's trainer says: "Perhaps the defeat of this little so-called champion (Rocky) will be an example of how pathetically weak your society has become."

Looking back on Rocky IV, we see that Stallone, who researched the Soviet system, was presenting in Drago an overblown example of how a typical Russian boxing champion trains. Call it a preview, 21 years ahead of its time.

Wladimir Klitschko could be a poster boy for that system Like virtually all Soviet fighters, Wladimir has excellent, all-around boxing skills. In other ways, he is atypical.

Unlike the other three Soviet champions, who came from working-class homes, Klitschko's father, Wladimir Rodionovich, was a colonel in the Air Force and today is a general. The Klitschkos were considered an upper class family in the Ukraine , and at one point, Wladimir thought of becoming a doctor, but settled for a Phd in sports medicine and philosophy.

"The difference between Sergei and Klitschko is Klitschko always had a silver spoon in his mouth," the brash, outspoken Gotzev said. "They (Klitschkos) had TV, cars, an apartment. Sergei had to settle for what he could get. He had to go over to his neighbors to watch their TV, or to use a phone."

Even Klitschko's decision to become a boxer at 14 was unusual for an upper class boy, violating an unwritten rule of a social system where class usually determines sports selection.

"If your father was a mechanic and your mother a clerk, chances are the parents wanted their kid to gravitate toward the tougher sports like boxing or wrestling," said Gotzev, whose father was a journalist and mother a high school teacher. "In the upper classes, the father wants them to play tennis and take up swimming. My parents also wanted me to take up tennis and swimming, but I refused to do it and ended up at sports school learning how to box."

Honed in one of those sports schools, by the time Klitschko was 20, he was skilled and talented enough to win an Olympic gold medal in the super heavyweight division at the 1996 Games in Atlanta . Ten years later, when Steward took Wladimir to Spain to train for his unification fight with Chris Byrd last April, the Hall of Fame trainer marveled at how intensely focused his boxer was in camp.

"When I was over there ( Spain ) with Wladimir, he would wake me in the morning at 7 a.m. We would go to the gym and work on this one move to counteract something Byrd did, just one move, over and over and over. Then we would break for lunch. After lunch, Wladimir wanted to watch tapes of Byrd's fights. Then we would go back to training, and later after dinner Wladimir would want to watch the training tapes we'd made of him that day. Wladimir's room is virtually empty. Just clothes and boxing tapes. Nothing to interfere with his focus on boxing. All he wants to do is train and watch tapes. The Eastern bloc fighters take boxing as a very serious business," Steward said.

Hasim Rahman, who was dethroned by Maskaev in August, understands the edge the Soviets have and wants better for his son, Hasim Jr. Rahman only had 13 amateur fights before turning pro at 21. His 15-year-old son is a highly-touted heavyweight prospect, but while several Las Vegas-based trainers wanted to train him, Rahman went straight to the master, Steward.

"Rahman came to me this summer and said, 'I want to speak with you as a father, not a fighter. I have a son everybody in Vegas wants to train. But I don't want nobody to mess him up. I am told you are the best there is in teaching basics. I want him to be everything I could not be because I didn't have an amateur background,'" Steward said.

Steward's introduction to the superiority of the Soviet amateur system came with Wladimir, whom he first began training before his fight with Samuel Peter last September. Steward assumed Klitschko, like many of the veteran boxers he signs on with, needed work on his fundamentals. He couldn't have been more wrong.

"The first time I worked with Wladimir, I wanted to teach him balance and start with the basics. He said to me, 'Why do you want to teach me stuff I already learned when I was 14.' He had such a great foundation over there. Their trainers have so much patience. Here, everything is hurry up and turn pro," Steward said.

Soviet trainers also instilled a tremendous amount of discipline in their boxers, who knew if they didn't conform, there were five kids waiting to take their jersey.

"The boxers who have come here from the Soviet system have a hunger that comes from years of discipline," said Gotzev, who also manages top contender Peter. "They grow up with the mentality to be disciplined fighters. It comes from their coaches and their parents. Parents in Europe are stricter than they are over here. American boxers, some of them think it is their right to be a champion. The ex-Soviets think it is a privilege to be a champion."

Lyakhovich, who lost his title earlier this month to American Shannon Briggs, came from a working class family, but once his talents were spotted at an early age, he joined the favored sons of the system, a system so sophisticated that the Soviets used physiologists to study a boxer’s punches to determine which muscles should be developed in order to produce maximum power and speed. When Lyakhovich finished high school, he did not have to look for a job to support himself while he trained, as many young American boxers have to do. The state took care of him.

"Boxing was a way for them to make a living in the old Soviet Union ," Gotzev said. "If you are an amateur there, you are in reality a professional. A mediocre amateur boxer over there makes a better living for his family than a mediocre pro does here. If they (Soviet amateurs) compete on the national or international level, they are guaranteed to receive an apartment, a car, and a great salary. That's why before the Soviet Union collapsed, boxers would try to stay in the system as long as possible. They would keep boxing into their 30s and they would get a guaranteed pension."

Wladimir paid the highest dividend on the Ukraine 's investment, winning Olympic gold. Lyakhovich took longer to earn medals for Belarus.

Gotzev was ringside in Atlanta in 1996 when Lyakhovich suffered a controversial one-point setback to Tonga 's super heavyweight Paea Wolfgramm in his first Olympic bout. Paea would go on to win silver, losing to Klitschko. One can only fantasize on what a great promotional tool it would be today if Lyakhovich and Klitschko, who may meet one day in a unification fight, had fought in that gold final.

Denied Olympic glory, Lyakhovich rebounded to win a bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships, and in 1998 knocked off England 's Audley Harrrison, who would become the world amateur champion and win Olympic gold in 2000. Lyakhovich closed out his amateur career with a 145-15 record, and demonstrated his excellent Soviet skills in out-boxing the hard-hitting champion Lamon Brewster in April.

The 7'-0 Valuev, like Lyakhovich, grew up in a typical blue-collar Russian family. His father worked in a factory repairing radios, his mother did odd jobs to help make ends meet. At 13, he was already 6'-4, and was scooped up by the System and sent to a boarding school in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg ) to specialize in basketball.

"I realized my childhood was finished," Valuev has said of his entrance into the Russian sports mill.

Although he experienced success as a basketball player on the national level, he tried boxing on a whim and fell in love with it at age 20. From that point on, the system groomed him, like all its boxers, to be a champion.

Maskaev's childhood mirrored both Lyakhovich and Valuev's. Born in Russia , his family migrated to Kazakhstan. Oleg grew up hard, laboring countless hours on the family farm, while also working under stifling conditions in the coal mines. Like Valuev, the 6'-3 Maskaev came late to boxing, but benefited from another advanced boxing system: the Soviet Army.

Boxers who are members of the Soviet Army basically have "no-show," jobs in that they spend virtually all their "work" time training to box. Maskaev quickly excelled, and would go on to become a Russian amateur champion. His amateur resume includes a first round knock out of Vitali Klitschko.

What will the current so-called Soviet invasion mean for the future of boxing? Wladimir is 30, and could be a dominant factor in the heavyweight division for several more years. At 37, Maskaev doesn’t figure to be around as long. Valuev is 33 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Waiting in the wings are several more ex-Soviets. Some are young contenders; others older veterans like 35-year-old Luan Krasniqi (29-2-1) and 33-year-old Vladimir Virchis (21-1), both ranked in the top tier of sanctioning bodies. The 31-year-old Russian, Sultan Ibragimov (19-0-1) -- who recently became the first Soviet heavyweight signed by Golden Boy Promotions – is the WBO mandatory to fight Briggs for the title.

The ev-Soviets overall have become fixtures in the sanctioning bodies top 15 rankings: in their first September list, the WBC has 3 ex-Soviets, WBA 4, IBF 4 and the WBO 7. Two of the more highly-regarded younger fighters grew up in the post-Soviet era, and turned pro at a young age -- Ruslan Chagaev and Alexander Dimitrenko.

Chagaev, from Uzbekistan , is ranked second in the WBA behind former champion John Ruiz and Valuev. Fighting under the ring alias, "White Tyson," the 6’-1 Chagaev is 21-0-1 with 17 KOs , and is managed by the powerful German, Klaus-Peter Khol. Chagaev turned pro at 19 when he signed with Kohl, but has a solid Soviet system background, having gone 82-4 as an amateur.

Dimitrenko is being compared to Wladimir, not only because he was born and raised in the Ukraine, but because "Baby Face" as he calls himself, stands a towering 6’-7 and has a reach of 83 inches, two more than Wladimir, and just two less than the seven-foot Valuev. Dimitrenko is 23-0, having followed Chagaev’s lead and signed a pro contract with Khol at 18 -- immediately after winning the 2000 Junior Boxing Championship.

Just as American sports stars like Michael Jordan inspired kids to go into basketball, Gotzev sees the same phenomenon unfolding when he travels from his home in Phoenix to Eastern Europe .

"There are kids over there now, 11, 12-years old, they are saying, 'I want to be a Sergei Lyakhovich, a Klitshcko," Gotzev said. "The kid that says that will stick to boxing and will be tough enough and disciplined enough to keep at it as a grown up. Kids here, they start fighting in the gym, they get punched hard in the nose, they say, to hell with this sport and take up basketball or football."

Can Americans retake the heavyweight division. Many in the U.S. boxing industry don't think so. Bob Arum, who promoted American heavyweight champions such as Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Larry Holmes, has said repeatedly that the lure of megabucks is driving bigger kids in this country to the NBA and NFL.

Few disagree, although promoter Gary Shaw, who has scouted the Olympics for prospects and seen the Soviet system in action, has a different take. He thinks the "invasion" will be good for boxing.

"Boxing is a waning sport in the U.S. (among youth)," Shaw said. "If boxing is going to continue to be a big sport, I don't think it will be with American stars. The stars will come from other countries, not just Soviet guys, but from all over."

Ivan Drago might have said the same thing, albeit more succinctly. To Apollo Creed Drago said, "You will lose." To Rocky, "I must break you."

Rocky Balboa won his fight with Ivan Drago. Will his real-life American counterparts have similar success? Only time will tell.