Photo © Frank Franklin II / AP

What was the highlight of Saturday night's heavyweight unification between IBF/IBO champion Wladimir Klitschko and WBO champion Sultan Ibragimov?

Was it the 10th round off-balance tackle of Klitschko by Ibragimov? Was it Klitschko literally slapping Ibragimov's pawing right hand the entire fight? Or was it the highlight clips of John Duddy's bloody majority decision victory over unknown Walid Smichet?

We'll talk more about Duddy later. For now, let's focus on what was a truly dreadful fight between the two heavyweight "champions."

Calling many of boxing's titleholders "champions" is fairly erroneous. But we can now -- for the millionth time -- fairly assert that the heavyweight division is the worst in the sport.

For those waiting for the resurgence of the heavyweights, stop waiting. Just give up. The division will never be the pinnacle of the sport again, no matter how much history anyone wants to talk about, what being 'heavyweight champion of the world" used to mean, or name-checking Ali, Louis, Marciano, Foreman, Dempsey, Johnson, or Frazier.

The division is a joke. The fight featured next to no action whatsoever, was roundly booed by the surprisingly large crowd at Madison Square Garden (a testament to the great fights the venue has seen from lighter weights in the last year) and was so utterly dull that HBO's Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman spent the latter half of the fight mostly talking to Lennox Lewis about his heavyweight fights.

And, oh yeah, Klitschko topped Ibragimov via unanimous decision, with scores of 119-110, 118-110 and 117-111.

Number of effective punches landed by Ibragimov: 0. The man laid a goose egg in the most important fight of his career, showing none of the hand speed and boxing skill that has been his calling card since he hired Jeff Mayweather to train him after a mind-numbingly bad draw against Ray Austin in 2006.

14,011 people paid for the privilege of seeing what was a first-rate bad fight. Whatever they paid, for wherever their seat was located, was exactly that many dollars and cents too much.

It cannot be stressed enough how bad this fight was. This is not one that HBO will be going out of their way to show again past the usual replays in the coming week. Ibragimov barely fought and was never once effective, winning two rounds on my scorecard simply because Klitschko did even less in those two rounds.

Klitschko was berated by trainer Manny Steward for much of the fight, as Steward made clear his opinion that Ibragimov had no business going 12 rounds with "Dr. Steelhammer." But after a solid two minutes or so of the fight being nothing but Ibragimov flicking his right hand out only to have Klitschko swat it down, I had a bad feeling about the fight, which I actually thought was going to be fairly entertaining going in.

Silly me. Never trust the heavyweights. Remember last year, after Peter obliterated James Toney in their rematch, and everyone was high on Peter as the future of the division? He got his ass kicked around the ring by Jameel McCline later in the year before he was able to squeak out a decision. Come on.

Chris Arreola was hyped as America's hope in the division. He continues to fight sub-journeymen. It raises a red flag -- his handlers don't think he's good enough to move forward in what is a terrible division.

Alexander Povetkin is considered perhaps the No. 1 prospect in the division. But have you watched him fight? The only American TV he's received was in January against Eddie Chambers, a fight he won, but it was just so unimpressive. More than anything else, Chambers beat himself. I'm not saying Povetkin isn't good, only that he looks more like a very workman-like heavyweight who could probably win a title or two with the way things are. It's not a ringing endorsement.

The division has nothing to offer. Klitschko is a hell of a fighter, and I truly believe that, bad fight or no. He owned the ring against Ibragimov, seemed to clearly intimidate his opponent, and was never in anything remotely close to danger.

He's become a good boxer, always has thunderous power in his right hand and left hook to get him out of a tough spot (remember, Calvin Brock was doing fairly well before Wlad decided to turn up the heat), and never presses trying to do too much anymore.

On one hand, that makes him a better fighter. On the other, it makes his fights garbage.

For the third straight fight, Wladmir Klitschko entered and left the ring as the best heavyweight in the world, by far. And at the same time, he left us feeling disappointed that we even tried to care about this abysmal wreck of a division.

It's too bad that HBO paired their wonderful Joe Louis: America's Hero Betrayed documentary with this stinker of a bout. It did nothing but remind us again that today's heavyweight division is pathetic.

On the non-televised undercard, John Duddy posted his 24th win in as many pro fights, outpointing Walid Smichet on cards that read 98-92, 98-92 and 95-95.

How can anyone consider Duddy a legit contender? In his sixth fight at MSG, Duddy was badly bloodied by Smichet (17-4-3), another in a long line of tune-up opponents, and a fairly big step down from Duddy's last fight, when he took on Howard Eastman and was able to barely score a win on points.

With Pavlik-Trinidad having fallen through, Duddy is again the front-runner to take on Youngstown's middleweight champion in Pavlik's first title defense in June, at Madison Square Garden.

If that fight happens, what are you calling? Pavlik TKO-5 sounds about right to me. He will maul John Duddy. It will be like watching de la Hoya-Gatti all over again. One guy will be the real deal. The other guy will be the plucky fella that doesn't have the goods.

Prospects Johnathan Banks, Peter Quillin and Joe Greene all won on the undercard as well, and all by knockout. Greene scored a 10th round TKO, Quillin dropped Thomas Brown in the second frame, and Banks got rid of Imama Mayfield at 1:49 of the first round.

The saddest thing is that I really do think it's time to just forget about the heavyweights. You will not get good fights out of the division's biggest cards. You just won't. Most of the guys aren't willing to fight each other -- something Wlad and Sultan do deserve props for, since they allegedly did fight last night -- and when they do, they almost all get too tentative, too fearful of what a loss could do to their careers. That's why an action heavyweight fight on ESPN2 once or twice a year always gets such praise, like Terry Smith-Kelvin Davis last May. When the guys actually fight, it makes it seem like a million bucks.

Instead, we are routinely treated to garbage. I say no more expectations -- period.

Let's now look forward to what's coming. You know it, you're pumped for it just like I am, and it can't come soon enough. We'll be here all week waiting for it:

MAIN EVENT
For the IBF, IBO and WBO Heavyweight Titles
WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO
(49-3, 44 KO, Kiev, Ukraine)
versus
SULTAN IBRAGIMOV
(22-0-1, 17 KO, Rostov, Russia)

I'm not sure how long it'll last, but I expect this to be a fairly entertaining heavyweight fight.

If it turns into a slugfest, Klitschko will blow him out. He just hits too hard and is too precise these days. But if Ibragimov and Jeff Mayweather can make this a boxing match, Sultan has a chance to outpoint Wlad.

You also have to consider the similarities between Ibragimov and Corrie Sanders, but not give it a TON of weight. The HBO.com preview has it right: They're both lefties, good on their feet, not huge power. But Sanders annihilated Klitschko that night.

The reason I don't give it a ton of weight, though, is simply that Wladimir Klitschko is a much better fighter than he was in 2003. He's much, much smarter.

My pick: Klitschko TKO-7, but I think Sultan has a legit shot to push this fight deep and maybe take it the distance. He just can't get blasted, which is easier said than done.

Photo © Tatyana Makeyeva / AFP / Getty Images

We've been here before. But it's been a long, long time.

The last time the heavyweight division in boxing had a title unification bout, it was November 13, 1999, in the dank atmosphere of Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center, one of the world's worst boxing venues, and worst sports arenas in general. Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield had met exactly eight months earlier to initially declare a single heavyweight champion, but that infamous night at Madison Square Garden saw a draw declared, one of the worst scoring fiascos in boxing history. Even Muhammad Ali outright called the fight a fix.

It's been over eight years since we've seen two credited heavyweight titleholders square off against one another. The top selling albums that year? Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Shania Twain, N*SYNC and Ricky Martin. The deadly boring Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture at the Oscars that year, and Roberto Benigni was named Best Actor for Life is Beautiful.

It was a simpler time. An awful time, quite honestly.

Now, two heavyweight titlists head back to the Big Apple's most storied arena to go toe-to-toe for a couple of trinkets, the heavyweight division's first big step toward finally declaring an undisputed champion once more.

Don't get in a rush about it, though. With his dominant win over an out of shape, seemingly finished Sergei Liakhovich, 7-footer Nikolai Valuev has gotten himself a shot at WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev, who is, to date, the only man to topple Valuev. And the WBC title is finally going to be decided on March 8 in Mexico, when champ Oleg Maskaev fights interim titleholder Samuel Peter.

And after that? Vitali Klitschko may just actually make his way back into the ring to fight the winner.

In short, we're a long way away. But IBF/IBO champion Wladimir Klitschko and WBO champion Sultan Ibragimov fighting on Saturday night is a big deal nonetheless. It shows a willingness from both men to actually put their money where their mouths are, which is one giant leap for heavyweight boxing.

In all candor, American fans will largely perceive the Klitschko-Ibragimov fight to be for the heavyweight title. Klitschko is probably the world's best-known heavy, and Ibragimov got some American press for fighting and dominating 44-year old Evander Holyfield late last year. Nobody knows Maskaev, nobody knows Peter, and nobody at all knows Chagaev. To most Stateside fans, this is the heavyweight title fight.

Photo © IBO

Don't you wish it were a little more compelling? Try as they may, HBO has sort of failed to make this seem like a truly big fight. This probably has something to do with the fact that the heavyweight division simply does not really matter anymore. Dan Rafael of ESPN was discussing the cruiserweight division on his Insider blog recently, and remembering when cruisers were considered fat light heavyweights. Given the depth and exciting nature of the current cruiser crop, Rafael wondered if we should consider the heavyweights to be, mostly, fat cruiserweights. In many cases, it's fair. The days before the 250-pound muscleman heavyweight saw the likes of Joe Louis and even Muhammad Ali fighting at around 200 pounds. Rocky Marciano never weighed even as much as 200 pounds.

It's a different world, to say the least. The heavyweight division, compared to the great fights we see so frequently these days, seems slow, lacks the monster punchers and great personalities it used to have, and doesn't even have a truly dominant force.

As good as Wlad Klitschko has become under Manny Steward's guidance, his current winning streak is...well, suspect. DaVarryl Williamson, Eliseo Castillo, Sam Peter, Chris Byrd, Calvin Brock, Ray Austin and Lamon Brewster have fallen since Klitschko was dropped by Brewster in 2004. It's been very impressive watching him dominate everyone but Peter, for the most part, what has he proven? We already knew he could slaughter Chris Byrd, the best fighter of the bunch. Brewster was all but retired going into the rematch. Brock is a solid pro, but nothing exceptional. And Castillo and Williamson are journeymen.

Sultan Ibragimov, too, has racked up his 22-0-1 record without much in the way of anything spectacular. His win over Holyfield was the biggest of his career, but it was a 44-year old man who had no chance. He beat Shannon Briggs for the WBO title, but Briggs was a lame duck champion. His excruciating draw with Ray Austin is still too fresh in the minds of those who doubt Ibragimov's skill.

Like Ibragimov, Klitschko has some skeletons, too. He's become so good because he's learned to use his jab so effectively, and he hits damn hard, particularly with the left hook and the monstrous right hand that follows his jabs. In short, he and Steward, without ever saying so, have developed a way for Wlad to stay out of the wheelhouse of his opponents. We're talking about a guy who's been knocked out by Brewster, Corrie Sanders and Ross Purritty. This isn't exactly the man with the iron chin.

But does Ibragimov have the boxing skill to force his way inside and make Klitschko mix it up? At a distance, Klitschko will manhandle Ibragimov and probably knock him out. If Sultan can make a rugged affair of it, he's got a real shot. Ibragimov's game is sound all around, no glaring weaknesses, and no great strengths. Klitschko is exceptional in some areas, but those whiskers are always going to be questioned.

Whatever you think of the division as a whole, both of these men deserve props for making this fight. For years, every hack that's gotten his grubby paws on a version of the heavyweight title has preached the good word of unification, yet none of them took so much as Step No. 1 in making it happen. At the least, Klitschko and Ibragimov have done that.

We'll be here on Saturday night to watch and score the fight, with round-by-round coverage and analysis. We also implore you to catch Joe Louis: America's Hero Betrayed immediately preceding the fight on the east coast, and immediately following it on the west coast.