July 3, 2007

Report/Photos: Klitschko.com

On Monday, inside the Cologne Hyatt Regency hotel, a press conference for Klitschko-Brewster II was held at one o’clock local time. Wladimir Klitschko will be defending the IBF/IBO world championship belts on Saturday for the third time, in an intriguing rematch of his April 2004 loss to Lamon Brewster.

Since Wladimir stayed in the same hotel he came down five minutes before the start. Wladimir and his trainer Emanuel Steward sat at the table next to Bernd Bonte, representative of the Klitschko’s management company Sport Five. Next to Wladimir and Emanuel, sat Zaurbek Baysangurov, the WBC International Light Middleweight who will be featured as the main undercard on July 7th.

Lamon arrived ten minutes late and once he and his trainer Buddy McGirt sat down, Mr. Bonte started press conference.

He informed the media and public about the upcoming rematch between Wladimir and Lamon, mentioned previous fight and then let the fighters face the media.

“My dream of fighting Lamon once more, has become a reality. On Saturday night I have an opportunity to put an end to one of the unpleasant chapters in my professional career,” spoke Wladimir. “Lamon undoubtedly is a strong and dangerous opponent. He is one of the toughest heavyweights in the world. And that’s really good. I never want to enter into the ring against weak opponents. To prove my strength, I have to beat the strongest fighters. In the first fight against Lamon, I lost all my strength to carry on with the fight. I don’t know what happened. But I have accepted my loss and I consider Lamon’s victory fair. Now I’m glad that I can fight Lamon once again.”

Next up was Wladimir’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, who on July 7th will celebrate his sixty-third birthday. “When Wladimir, three years ago faced Lamon Brewster, it was our first fight with me being his trainer. Unfortunately Wladimir lost. Since then Wladimir has changed. He became better, proving why he is considered the strongest heavyweight in world. But we’re not overlooking Lamon either. We consider him as one of the strongest heavyweights and expect only the best fight from him. However on the seventh of the seventh month in two thousand seventh, Wladimir will knock out Lamon in the seventh round.”

The last sentence Emanuel said without a smile, even quite seriously. After few seconds of silence Lamon’s trainer Buddy McGirt responded.

“We came here to win the championship titles. We studied Wladimir extensively and are ready to end this fight in such a way that Wladimir would have no excuses to make in justification of his loss. I completely agree with my colleague that the fight will end with a knockout. Only the fight will resemble the one three years ago, when Lamon knocked out Wladimir in the fifth round.”

As McGirt finished, Lamon started talking.

“I will knockout Wladimir once again, so that no one says anything,” declared Lamon. “Boxing fans saw me knockout Luan Krasniqi two years ago here in Germany. So I have no problem fighting in Germany. I am happy to be back here.”

Following Lamon’s words, members of media began asking questions about the first fight, training camps, fight plans and so on.

Wladimir and Lamon were unanimous in their opinion that this fight will be very different from the first one. The both agreed that each one has become more skilled, experienced, and their styles improved as they wised up.

Emmanuel and Buddy stated that they are happy with the training camps, and that their fighters are at the peak of their career.

Everyone reiterated that the fight would only end by a knockout. But then each fighter and their trainer stressed that they are ready for all of the twelve rounds. Lamon and Wladimir agreed that most importantly to them is to win this fight.

Lamon promised that after his victory over Wladimir, he would do his best to unify the titles. Wladimir responded that he is completely concentrated on the upcoming fight, and about his future fights or unifications will only talk after the fight with Brewster is over.

After that they faced each other for a photo shoot. Lamon went back to his hotel Radison SAS, while Wladimir went back up to his room. An hour later Wladimir came down to eat and following a two-hour break he departed for his evening training.