Sven Ottke, the Robber Baron of Germany, is Back

On paper, Germany's Sven "the Phantom" Ottke should be a Hall of Famer, a boxing legend in the making. He turned pro at the late age of 30, and with just 13 fights in less than two years he rose to become the IBF super middleweight champion. He added the WBA strap to his collection, made 21 successful title defenses, and retired undefeated. However, the only phantasmic thing about Ottke is his record: it's all a great big fraud. Ottke's moniker should be "The Robber," and his legacy is that of the most protected hometown favorite in modern boxing history. His career is stuffed with dubious decisions and highway robberies, and stands as the literal modern model for how far a fighter can go with strong local promoters, local officiating, and hometown crowds. Despite its earnest desire to see him get a whipping, the entire international boxing community breathed a sigh of relief when Ottke retired, and now this guy is making a comeback!

The Amateurs and the Makings of a Crummy Style

Ottke turned to boxing at the age of 14. In his own words, he just wasn't any good at other sports. He had a pretty good amateur career. Ottke went to the Olympics in 1988, 1992, and 1996. He was the national amateur champ of East Germany and then the unified Germany, and a two-time European champion. He beat future professional world champions Antonio Tarver, Michael Moorer, Chris Byrd, and Juan Carlos Gomez, racking up a record of 256-47-5.

Almost a decade and 300 amateur fights is a LONG time to spend in the amateurs and then turn pro, and Ottke didn't make the transition until he was 30. The pros are a very different game than the amateurs, and continental European fighters sometimes find making the jump harder boxers from Britain or the Western Hemisphere. Their style is tuned to amateur competition, and Ottke's version is the extreme defense version of that style. As a pro, Ottke would stand on the outside, using a tight guard and elusive movement to block and duck punches. However, what separates Ottke from modern defensive wizards like Pernell Whittaker or Chris Byrd is that Ottke barely hit back, and when he did he never committed to his punches. Byrd and Whittaker have reputation as light punchers, but at least they punched. Ottke didn't punch, or even slapped. He poked his opponents. It shows: in 34 professional fights, Ottke has only 6 knockouts to his name. I have long believed he fought (or rather, didn't fight) that way because committing to his punches required him to open his point defense, and Ottke's style was about timid defense above all else.

A Career Built on Stinkers

A boxing style built around neither hitting the other guy or getting hit - i.e. defusing the action - should be a recipe for professional disaster in prize fighting. Somehow, Ottke's promoters managed to get the German audience to like him. I have never quite been able to understand why anyone would want to watch Ottke, except to see him get whipped. However, his promoters managed to persuade Germans to adore him, and the Germans didn't seem to care if Ottke was dreadful to watch or a robbery artist extraordinare, just so long as he kept winning. His last fight with Armand Kranjic registered over 7 million viewers, making it the single most watched television program in Germany that night! My only explanation for Ottke's popularity is that his wimpy, timid boxing style sat well with the increasingly pacifist German people.

The key to Ottke's success were his promoters. Nothing has ever been proven, except that they were able to pay enough to lure contenders and champions to come fight their boy on his home turf, where they exercised frightening control over the fight officials and made sure Ottke got the nod in numerous stinky decisions.

Ottke won the IBF title in October 1998 from Philadelphia blue collar fighter Charles "the Hatchet Brewer," who picked it up when Roy Jones moved up to light heavyweight. Little did Brewer realize that when the IBF sent him to Germany, they were sending him to be fleeced. He did more of everything and did it better than Ottke, but Ottke won a blatantly criminal split decision. Brewer later got a rematch in 2000, but he got the exact same result: he won the fight, but was robbed by the judges. I hope Brewer was at least well paid to be screwed twice by the same guy.

Ottke's next victim was Thomas Tate. In that 1999 bout, Tate opened a cut with a clean punch. According to the rules, if a fight is stopped on the basis of cuts opened by punching, it is a TKO. However, the stoppage was ruled as not being caused by a punch-opened cut, and it went to the judges, where the hometown favorite was leading on all three scorecards. The scores were highly questionable, and were only invoked in the first place because of a biased, if not corrupt referee. Tate got a rematch in 2002, and Ottke did better on the second go around, he by no means scored a clear victory. Tate slipped in the 2nd round, and the slip was ruled a knockdown in yet another example of pro-Ottke bias by a hometown referee.

Then came Glen Johnson, who would later go on to knockout Roy Jones and split two fights with Antonio Tarver. He clearly outboxed Ottke, who did little more than pedal his bicycle for 12 rounds. Ottke got a unanimous decision victory from presumably blind judges.

When Byron Mitchell came to Germany in 2003 for a WBA-IBF unification bout, he must have brought enough clout with him to secure one fair and honest judge, who had Mitchell winning by 116-112. The other two ruled for Ottke. Once again, robbery prevailed in Germany. Later that year, Ottke held up Mads Larsen of Denmark, who was stronger, more confident, and consistently got off first.

The climax of Ottke's career of highway robbery came at the end of 2003, when he faced British slugger and former WBC titlest Robin Reid. By the middle of the fight, Reid had been told he was behind on all cards, despite thoroughly outboxing Ottke, and realized he would need a knockout to win. He went out to get it, and sent Ottke crashing to the canvas, only to watch the referee wave the knockdown off as a slip. Then Ottke began fouling Reid in an effort to break up his offense, and the referee incredibly deducted points from Reid, the man receiving the fouls!

To be fair, Ottke did manage to knockout fringe contenders Giovanni Nardiello and Anthony Mundine, so not all his wins over name opposition were the result of dark doings with the ring officials. I have also heard that he is a real gentleman outside the ring, and all-around nice guy. The problem is that all his ill-gotten victories came at a high price, extracted from the careers of other far more worthy fighters. While Tate went on to knockout Omar Sheika after his first loss to Ottke, his career stalled after the second and he hasn't fought since. Mitchell was robbed of his title, went on to challenge and get kncoked out by super middleweight king Joe Calzage, and his career has been in the dumps ever since. The fight with Ottke proved to be Reid's last chance to win a world title; he was later knocked out by American slugger Jeff Lacy. Brewer, also a good, hard-working man by all reports, challenged three times for world titles but never got a crown back. These men lost career opportunities and paydays because crooked judges and referees gave unearned victories to Ottke; he indirectly picked their pockets clean. "The Robber" indeed.

The Comeback

Sven Ottke is lined up to fight fellow comebacker Dariusz "The Tiger" Michalczewski, the tough light heavyweight who enjoyed a long title reign and was repeatedly ducked by Roy Jones, Jr. Ottke is very direct about why he is returning to the ring: he needs the money. He has recently gotten out of a very expensive divorce with his ex-wife Gabi, who incidentally knocked him out! That's right: Ottke's wife decked him and put him on the floor. One wonders if Ottke's defensive style hasn't been shielding a glass chin all along.

Both Ottke and Michalczewski remain popular in Germany, so there is little doubt a fight between them will rake in the Euros. Michalczewski is bigger, tougher, and stronger. Also, his fighting style both ages and gathers rust better than Ottke's: defensive technicians need to stay tuned up to be effective. Finally, Michalczewski is backed by powerful German promoters too, so if the Tiger can catch the Robber, maybe we will finally see Sven Ottke get the whomping he has richly deserved for more than a decade. However, one big fight does not rebuild a fortune, so unfortunately boxing fans will probably be saddled with a handful of Ottke robberies after Michalczewski gets done with him. So long as the pacifist Germans pay to see their creampuff win stinky decisions, it looks like he simply won't go away.