Monte Barrett has tried hard this week not to stand simply in the shadow of the world’s biggest-ever boxing champion.
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Barrett will face 7-foot Nikolai Valuev in Saturday’s main event at Rosemont’s Allstate Arena, a scheduled 12-round bout for the World Boxing Association heavyweight title Valuev won from John Ruiz in December.
At Thursday’s weigh-in, where Barrett’s 222.8 pounds on the digital scale fell more than 100 short of the 328 Valuev registered, the challenger doffed his shirt to reveal a chiseled upper torso.
Valuev declined to remove his shirt. But that could have had more to do with the chilly midday air than the Russian champion’s aversion to showing his massive frame. Valuev, 33, is unbeaten in 44 bouts with 32 knockouts. He seemed sufficiently intimidating just standing before several hundred onlookers at Sears Tower’s southwest plaza.
On Wednesday, when the two faced off at a final pre-fight news conference at Allstate Arena, 6-foot-3-inch Barrett changed his perspective of looking up to the champion by climbing onto a chair and looking down.
Earlier, he boasted that Valuev “has a big head and I have a big knuckle.”
But whatever he does before the bell rings for Round 1 Saturday night, Barrett cannot shake the perception he is a less-than-deserving opponent handpicked by Don King, the promoter for both fighters.
“Actually, I chose Valuev, he didn’t choose me,” Barrett said in an interview this week.
He said King offered him the option of challenging Valuev or Sergei Liakhovich, the World Boxing Council champion King also promotes.
Although Valuev’s size might make him “more of a challenge,” Barrett said, he thinks the Russian champion “is undefeated but untested, a mystery. . . . For a big guy, he moves well, but he fights at one pace and other opponents have let him do that. I won’t.”
Las Vegas oddsmakers had Valuev an 11-2 favorite Thursday afternoon.
Barrett, 35, is 31-4 with 17 knockouts. He admits his last fight has made fans skeptical of his chances Saturday. In that bout, Aug. 13 of last year at the United Center, he lost a one-sided decision to Hasim Rahman.
“My last visit to Chicago wasn’t pleasant, you didn’t get 100 percent of me,” Barrett conceded.
He attributed his poor mental approach to the fight to “personal issues” such as trying to manage his boxing and daily routines by himself.
“It wasn’t a good moment for me,” he said. “This time around, I represent redemption.”
The New Yorker has bounced back from a litany of setbacks outside the ring including divorce, separation from his children, stock losses and bankruptcy. Now, he wants to rebound inside the ropes.
To do that, he said he needs to look past the aura of publicity his super-sized opponent has generated in this, his first U.S. fight as heavyweight champion.
“I have to be myself and have fun,” Barrett declared. “The idea is to let your hands go, don’t fight too tense but be intense.”
Critics question why he deserved a title shot after going 2-2 in the only four bouts he has fought in nearly three years, including the most recent loss to Rahman. In his defense, Barrett cited Liakhovich, who had not fought for 16 months before upsetting champion Lamon Brewster to win the World Boxing Organization heavyweight title April 1.
Saturday’s Valuev-Barrett main event and the World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Tomasz Adamek’s defense against Paul Briggs will telecast on HBO (9 p.m.).
And, in one of boxing’s dumb marketing moves, that telecast will compete for viewers with Showtime’s 8 p.m. telecast of a Las Vegas fight card featuring World Boxing Council lightweight champion Diego Corrales’ defense against Joel Casamayor. It will be offered as part of a Showtime free preview weekend for non-subscribers.
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