The Rematch #2

Lamon Brewster put Wladimir Klitschko's career in doubt but also sparked a duo that ruled the sport for a decade.

Wladimir Klitschko - along with brother Vitali - may have ruled the heavyweight division for almost a decade but he was still a work in progress when he last tasted defeat back in 2004.

That loss to Lamon Brewster came just a year after another, perhaps more shocking, setback against Corrie Sanders that removed the Ukrainian giant's aura of invincibility for good.

The late South African had knocked Klitschko out in the second round of what had been his sixth defence of the WBO title, although some at the time saw the result as something of a freak win for the fringe contender.

But his future opponents would know there was a vulnerability about Wladimir that kept them searching for that one big shot when all hope appeared lost.

Punishment

Not that Brewster was uncompetitive early in that first fight with Klitschko, which came just over a year after the Sanders loss and had the newly-vacated WBO strap once again on the line.

With two more early victories on the slate Klitschko was expected to resume his rise to heavyweight supremacy having recently taken on the legendary trainer Emanuel Steward in a bid to shore up his leaky defence.

However, his ability to take any serious punishment was cast into doubt again when Brewster, himself on the deck in the fourth, bounced back to take out Klitschko at the end of the fifth round with the Ukrainian in a drunk-like state and barely able to make it to his feet as the referee waved the it off.

Brewster, although a heavy puncher, had not appeared to land many clean shots but with Klitschko already looking exhausted it did not take much to finish him off. Such was the former champion's lethargy in the immediate aftermath that his corner claimed he had been drugged.

But by the time they met again more than three years on things had changed. Klitschko had come through a testing time against the unbeaten 'Nigerian Nightmare' Sam Peter, which looked like it was turning into a re-run of the Brewster defeat when he went down twice in the fifth round.

He battled through the crisis though, sticking to the jab-and-move style his trainer Steward was instilling in him. And by the time he caught up with Brewster again he had knocked out IBF champion Chris Byrd and defended his new belt twice with convincing knockout wins.

Brewster, meanwhile, had lost his WBO strap to Belarusian Siarhei Liakhovich and suffered a detached retina in the process, keeping him out of the ring for more than a year. It was hardly the ideal preparation for a title fight, and at the age of 34 inactivity can ruin a fighter.

The bout was a crowning moment for Klitschko, not only giving him closure on the past but proving that the Steward magic that worked on Lennox Lewis only a few years before was again capable of turning a vulnerable heavyweight into an unstoppable force.

Unnecessary

A confident Klitschko did not allow his opponent into the fight from the opening bell, his rapier-like jab discouraging Brewster whose work-rate and ambition failed to match that of the first contest between the pair.

By the end of the fourth round Brewster's trainer Buddy McGirt was imploring his charge to show more, or be pulled from the fight. It was already one-way traffic and with Lamon's history of eye-trouble McGirt was not going to allow him to take too much unnecessary punishment.

But the fifth round changed little and by halfway Klitschko was well on top, the right hand starting to land at will with one particular shot close to putting Brewster down towards the end of the sixth, by which time McGirt had seen more than enough.

So for Klitschko it marked the true beginning of a new era, one in which he has dispatched all those put before him, with barely a glove being laid upon his suspect chin. That domination is in no small part attributed to Steward, who molded a would-be great into the finished article.

For Brewster, it marked the end. He lost two of his last four low-key fights and the eye problems that began during the Liakhovich fight still trouble him to this day.

But he will still be remembered for the day that he brought down a Klitschko - and shook the world.