Maskaev trying to relive the American dream

Maskaev trying to relive the American dream

Mark E. Ortega

FightFanNation.com

December 9, 2009

When Oleg Maskaev gets into the ring this coming Saturday night at the Memorial Auditorium in his adopted home of Sacramento, California, he will be doing so as the heavy favorite. For Maskaev [36-6, 27 KOs], this is something new to him, as throughout his personal life and professional career he has walked into things as the overwhelming underdog, which is something he will have to do again against Vitali Klitschko in a heavyweight title fight should he be victorious against the much younger Nagy Aguilera [14-2, 9 KOs] this weekend.

For Maskaev, nothing has come easy in a career and a life that has been substantiated with peaks and valleys. He grew up tough in his homeland of Kazahkstan, laboring in the farms as well as the coal mines before joining the Russian army. He would go on to join the Russian Amateur boxing team and become a national amateur champion. He is even rumored to have knocked out the older Klitschko in the first round of an amatuer bout, something Oleg doesn't fail to mention when his name and the WBC title comes up. Someone with that kind of success as an amateur, you would think that as a professional he would have been managed fairly well.

Oleg may instead have been one of the most mismanaged fighters from his opening days as a professional until Dennis Rappaport came into the picture many years later. After winning his first professional bout against a 21-0 fellow Kazahk heavyweight, Maskaev would move to the United States to pursure the American dream. It's hard to argue that any fighter out there today better represents America and what our country is capable of than Maskaev, who has experienced more ups and downs than just about anyone in the sport.

Which is why Maskaev was more than upset when, during the build-up of his rematch with Hasim Rahman [this time being for a piece of the heavyweight title], Rahman was being hailed as the last American hope in the heavyweight division. Maskaev has been an American citizen since 2005, and has lived in the country since ten years prior. His children were born in the States, making them instant American citizens. Oleg is the kind of person that helped founded our country, yet the tagline that was being plugged for that fight with Rahman was “America's Last Line of Defense”.

Rahman was a guy who enjoyed great management and matchmaking all throughout his career. He was knocked out of the ring the first time he met Maskaev in 1999, yet was able to secure a world title shot with Lennox Lewis seventeen months later off the strength of four wins, only one of which was against a comparable heavyweight in Corrie Sanders. Maskaev had already been in the ring with at least a dozen heavyweights that were highly touted at the time or heavily more experienced than Maskaev, yet it was another eight years before Maskaev would get his shot at the title.

In the early part of his career, Maskaev fought and beat 3-0 heavyweight prospect Robert Hawkins in his fourth pro fight, knocking out Hawkins in four rounds. He beat 23-1-1 Joe Thomas two months later before being fed to former heavyweight champion Oliver McCall in Maskaev's sixth pro bout. Maskaev, who was listed on the Fox telecast with a record far more padded than his 6-0 ledger at the time, was knocked out in the first round against the highly experienced McCall who had just lost his piece of the heavyweight title.

Maskaev proved his worth in knocking off a pair of 10-0 prospects Fernely Feliz and Ralph West before once again being fed to a more touted fighter, 27-0 David Tua. Maskaev, who at 10-1 was listed incorrectly again at 20-1, gave Tua all he could handle before succumbing via eleventh round TKO. Maskaev was even on one card and ahead far on another at the time of the stoppage.

Maskaev would not lose another fight for three years, beating Alex Stewart, Courage Tshabalala, and Rahman along the way. The Rahman fight came on HBO, and Maskaev delivered one of the most memorable heavyweight knockouts of the '90s, sending Hasim through the ropes with a shotgun blast of a right hand. Maskaev didn't earn a title shot but a return date on HBO, knocking off fellow KO-artist Derrick Jefferson in four.

This still apparently wasn't enough, and Maskaev suffered another setback, losing to Kirk Johnson and Lance Whitaker in back-to-back fights on HBO, both by early knockout. After two easy wins, Maskaev would suffer another defeat, this time an eighth-round TKO at the hands at Corey Sanders in 2002. Many would have hung them up at this point in their careers, and this is something Oleg heavily considered. But Maskaev teamed up with promoter Dennis Rappaport, manager Fred Kesch, and trainer Victor Valle, Jr., and immediately Oleg was an improved fighter, if not only for the reason that he wasn't being thrown in with the wolves every fight.

Maskaev would go on a ten fight, three year win streak, with none of his wins coming against the level of guys he had beaten five and ten years earlier. Yet behind his new team, this was enough to secure a WBC eliminator with Sinan Samil Sam, who Maskaev outpointed in Germany.

Maskaev had finally secured a shot at the world title, in a rematch with Hasim Rahman. Maskaev promised to seize the opportunity, and this time he scored a dramatic twelfth-round stoppage of Rahman in almost identical fashion to their first bout eight years earlier.

With that, Maskaev became the WBC heavyweight champion, something that nobody could have projected when he was getting knocked out by Tua, Whitaker, Johnson, and McCall. You would be hard-pressed to find a tougher road to the top than the one Maskaev took, but it only made it that much sweeter.

Maskaev would make one defense of his title before injuries would keep him out of the ring for more than a year-and-a-half. Samuel Peter, his mandatory challenger, had grown impatient and secured the interim title by barely getting by Jameel McCline, an opponent that was on or below the same level of about a half-dozen guys that Maskaev had defeated without earning a title shot.

Eventually the two would meet, with Maskaev fighting bravely before being stopped in the sixth. Since then, Maskaev has run off two wins against less than stellar opposition, but it was seemingly enough to put him in line for another title shot. Maskaev will await the winner of Vitali Klitschko's defense against American Kevin Johnson, which ironically takes place on the same day as Maskaev's fight with Aguilera.

If Maskaev is able to emerge victorious, which even at 40 he should, he could possibly get a crack at reliving the American dream and becoming America's “last line of defense” in the heavyweight division.