Vitali Klitschko

December 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Vitali Klitschko

Vitali Klitschko is a professional Ukrainian Heavyweight boxer who currently holds the WBC heavyweight champion. He was born on July 19th of 1971 by the complete name of Vitaliy Volodymyrovych Klychko. He was nicknamed in boxing as Dr. Ironfist.

Klitschko is the leader of the UDAR of Vitaliy Klychko political party and likewise a member of the Congress of the Council of Europe – Ukrainian delegation. He was a former WBO and WBC boxing champion. He was not only a world boxing champion, Klitschko also holds a Ph. D. in Sports Science, thus making him the first professional boxer to have a Ph.D. in the history of boxing.

He was quite known for his power-punches to which he earned a 93% knockout percentage rate. He was best known also to have the greatest record of knockout-to-fight ratio than any boxing champion in the heavyweight division history. Thus, he has never been knocked down by anyone.

Klitschko has a younger brother named Wladimir Klitschko who is also currently the WBA, WBO, IBO, IBF, and The Ring Magazine’s World heavyweight champion.

Vitali Klitschko was awarded of the “Federal Cross of Merit” by Germany because of his distinct and various accomplishments attained. The Federal Cross of Merit is actually the highest award for any civilian.


 
In 2005, Vitali Klitschko announced his retirement from the boxing industry and during that time had just finished undergoing a knee surgery. Due to this, he had postponed his scheduled fight with Hasim Rahman for the The Ring and the WBC boxing titles. During 2005, Klitschko has postponed his bouts for four times due to health problems. As he had rescheduled a lot of his fights, Klitschko got frustrated and decided that he should retire from boxing.
 
During the WBC Gala held on December 20th of 2005, Klitschko was appointed as the “Champion Emeritus“. This status was given to him after he later announced of his intention to return to the boxing industry. The “Champion Emeritus” allows any boxer to become a mandatory challenger from which the challenged one cannot refuse to fight. In 2008, Vitali Klitschko defeated the defending champion of the WBC – Samuel Peter.
 
Klitschko had also run in Kiev for mayor and likewise as parliament during the 2006 Ukrainian elections. He had campaign platforms that focused on anti-corruption. He is also a great supporter of the present Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and as well as the president’s party.

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Willie Pep

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Willie Pep

Guglielmo Papaleo or most widely known in his boxing name “Willie Pep” is an Italian – American Boxer who was recognized for his top skill in boxing speed. He was born in Middletown, Connecticut, United States on September 19th of 1922. Pep was also nicknamed as “Will o’ the Wisp” and was considered as one of the best boxing fighters during 20th century. In 1990, Pep was included in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He made his legend by winning 229 bouts of his 241 boxing fights during the 26 years that he had in the boxing industry. In his 229 wins, 65 of those were knockouts while he only had 11 losses and 1 draw during his whole boxing career. He was considered by many critics to have the most impressive boxing record in the history of boxing for having 229-11-11.

Willie Pep began his professional boxing career in 1940 by defeating James McGovern in Hartford, Connecticut by a 4-round decision. Just like most of the boxers during the first half of 20th century, Pep had his early boxing career in New England and divided his early 25 bouts in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Pep was undefeated during that 25 bouts, hence on his 26th fight, Pep headed to Michigan and defeated Eddie Flores with a knockout in round 1. He continued heading west and made his boxing debut in California by defeating Billy Spencer in a 4-round decision.


 
In 1942, Pep had a record of 41-0 and was considered as having the status of one of the top boxers of the world. He had additional fights with totaled his record to 52-0 including a win in his rematch with Archibald. Later that same year, Pep won his first title as the Featherweight World Champion by beating Chalky Wright in a 12-round decision. He had another 2 fights before the year ended and won all by knockout.
 
Pep had an impressive 61-0 record but finally lost to a fellow world champion, Sammy Angott in 1943. In compensation, Pep won 5 fights in the end of the year. And in the following year, he proved to be undefeated by winning all of his 16 fights in 1944. Pep continued his legend by winning 73 bouts in a row and counting.
 
Willie was definitely one of the greatest boxers of all time.

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