Brock hopes to travel same road as Holyfield

By Bernard Fernandez

Kathy Duva was recalling her frustration in the early 1990s in getting the national media to pay closer attention to Evander Holyfield, then the God-fearing, clean-living heavyweight contender who was being described, if he was being described at all, as the anti-Tyson.

“I had conversations back in those days with a number of people, trying to get them to do stories on this really good fighter, and really nice guy,” said Duva, then the publicist for Main Events and now the company’s president. “I’ll never forget the guy from People magazine who said, and I quote: `Come back when he robs a gas station and maybe I’ll write about him.’

“The focus of my life at that point was trying to convince people to do something to help get the word out about this decent man who had not done anything socially abhorrent. They were more interested in Mike Tyson. That’s what you’re up against when there actually is someone who’s a role model. Nobody wants to hear about a guy like that.

“There was a time when everyone said Evander didn’t have that `it’ factor. But he developed that, didn’t he? If you become the heavyweight champion of the world and remain so for a long time, you’ve got `it,’ whatever `it’ is. You don’t have to be Public Enemy No. 1, you don’t have to be as charismatic as Muhammad Ali because no one else is ever going to be. You just have to be the best heavyweight in the world. If you’re that, everything else sort of takes care of itself.”

Which brings us to Calvin Brock, a Main Events fighter who is similar in so many ways to Holyfield that the comparisons are eerie. While boxing fans are pining for the next Tyson to come along and re-electrify a static heavyweight division, the closest thing to Holyfield yet, at least in terms of personal demeanor, might have been right there under their noses all along.

Like Holyfield, the 31-year-old Brock (29-0, 22 KOs) has faith that his fate is preordained, that it is inevitable he will fulfill his destiny by dethroning IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (46-3, 41 KOs) on Nov. 11 in Madison Square Garden.

“Everything is in accordance with God’s plan,” Brock said of his largely under-the-radar journey from 2000 Olympic disappointment to a shot at the title and glory. “I believe everything has worked out perfectly. I’m undefeated and about to become the most legitimate world champion in the heavyweight division.

“For a time, I was overshadowed by Dominick Guinn and Audley Harrison – well, maybe not Audley Harrison – but I knew that in the end I was the cream and the cream always rises to the top. Some contenders are rushed into something before they’re ready. I wanted to reach this point in my life and in my career at the right time. Now is the right time.”

And those parallels between himself and Holyfield? They’re apt to a certain degree, Brock believes.

“I always admired Evander because he accomplished some of the same things that I wanted to,” Brock said. “He went to the Olympics (where a controversial referee’s ruling limited him to a bronze medal in 1984), he became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and he made a whole lot of money. He’s a smaller heavyweight, too; he went in as the underdog a lot of times.”

OK, let’s go down the list and see how often we can connect the dots between Holyfield and Brock. Size? Holyfield, now 43, is 6-2 and weighed 220 pounds for his most recent bout, that second-round stoppage of journeyman Jeremy Bates. Brock is 6-2 and generally weighs someplace in the mid-220s. Check.

Geography? They’re both sons of the South; Holyfield was born in Atmore, Ala., and was raised in Atlanta while Brock is a lifelong resident of Charlotte, N.C. Check
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Olympic background? Check.

Lack of a defining characteristic in the ring, such as one-punch knockout power or blurring hand speed? Holyfield was proficient in every area but not really exceptional in one. The same might be said of Brock. Check.

Tripping the light fantastic? Hey, we all know Holyfield strutted his stuff in Dancing With The Stars on network TV. Brock is a student of tap whose was unable to watch the live telecast of the Lennox Lewis-Tyson bout in 2002 because his dance recital was the same evening. Check.

Financial acumen? Holyfield, whose education never went beyond high school, has deposited hundreds of millions of dollars into his personal accounts. Brock, a 1999 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a degree in finance, formerly worked for the Bank of America and advised customers on the best ways to invest their money. Check, sort of.

If there is a difference between Holyfield, one of the greatest, and Brock, the latest, it is that Holyfield is a future Hall of Fame whose place in boxing history is assured. Brock … well, let’s just say the “Boxing Banker” is feeling his way toward that sort of recognition.
Of Klitschko, Brock is properly respectful – “I see a real talented boxer with good speed, good power,” he said – but nothing he can’t handle.

“I can get past Klitschko’s strengths and break him down,” Brock said. “I know how to negate the things he does best, which are his jab, his movement and his quick, straight right hand.

“Timor Ibragimov (whom Brock outpointed on --) came in really confident that he could win with his jab, his movement and his quick, straight right hand. His plan didn’t work at all. It won’t work at all for Klitschko. I will come out of this fight as the new heavyweight champion of the world. I know I’m going to be in great condition and I have the skills to do what I need to do. I have a lot of heart and I box smart.”

Others aren’t so sure that Brock can ever be anything more than Holyfield Lite. Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but skeptics, and Brock has more than a few, figure he can follow in Commander Vander’s footsteps only so far.

“I think Brock is decent,” veteran matchmaker Don Elbaum told The Ring magazine last year when asked about Brock’s potential. “He’s part of the mix. He’s a decent fighter, a good puncher, well-conditioned, but just decent skills. He really doesn’t stand out in anything.”
Those who share Elbaum’s evaluation of Brock would say that he already has gone further than he has any right to expect, and that to dare to dream of making the quantum leap up to Holyfield’s plateau is folly. But even Holyfield’s inspiring history of overcoming long odds seems plausible when one considers what Brock already has achieved.

This is a guy who had his first amateur bout at 12 years of age and started out 0-6. Hey, what else would you expect of someone who didn’t have an actual trainer and learned to box in impromptu backyard fights with kids from the neighborhood?

“When I ran out of friends to box with, that’s when God laid upon my heart what His plan was for me,” Brock said.

Brock’s father, Calvance Brock, had no boxing background, but he loved his son and wanted him to succeed at something he so desperately wanted. So Dad sent away for Kenny Weldon’s learn-to-box tapes and he and Calvin studied those as intently as if the both of them were cramming for a big test.

Imagine, if you can, Ingrid Bergman’s Sister Bendict character in The Bells of St. Mary moonlighting as a fight trainer after she read that boxing book and taught the picked-on eighth-grader how to defend himself against the schoolyard bully. That’s the Brock family saga. Perhaps Calvance Brock, who still works Calvin’s corner along with lead trainer Tom Yankello, is the most improbable character in this whole cockeyed tale of childhood ambition and a dad’s devotion.

Continuing their dual education in the manly art, Calvance helped Calvin rebound from his dismal amateur beginnings to fashion a 147-38 record and earn a berth on the 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing team that competed in Sydney, Australia.

But Brock, whom many believed was a strong contender for a gold medal, was ousted in the opening round and had the ignominy of being labeled “least likely to succeed” as a pro in a USA Today story outlining the prospects of the 12 American Olympians.

Brock lays the blame for the U.S. team’s failure to bring home a single gold medal at the feet of coach Tom Mustin, who he said worked his fighters so relentlessly during training camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., that they had nothing left when it was time for the fights that counted.

In any case, Brock earned all of $1,500 for his pro debut on Feb. 11, 2001, way off the beaten path in Elgin, Ill., in which he stopped the immortal Zibielee Kimbrough in three rounds.

For every positive review Brock has received since then, such as his emphatic first-round knockout of Jim Strohl on June 7, 2003, on the undercard of the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward III in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall, there has been corresponding instances when he didn’t live up to someone’s expectations of what a future heavyweight champion should be.

But all the cynicism will be put aside, at least temporarily, if Brock steals another page from the Holyfield playbook and drops the favored Klitschko as Evander did to Buster Douglas.
Kathy Duva is convinced America is going to develop the same sort on crush for Brock that it had on Holyfield.

“Once you get to know him, you’re going to love the guy,” she said of Brock. “It was the same way with Evander. Believe me, I know. I’ve lived this before.

“But Calvin has to win the fight on Nov. 11 to set everything into motion. He can become a superstar, just as Evander was, without being obnoxious or overbearing or arrested. He doesn’t have to be any of that stuff. He just has to be himself.”