The Cyber Boxing Zone Newswire

Bremen - 13 August 1999

After being a professional for almost eight years and being a reigning world champion since close to five years, Dariusz Michalczewski reached the peak of his career.

After defeating Virgil Hill in 1997, Michalczewski stopped all his last six opponents, among them the dangerous African Drake Thadzi and the undefeated Brit Mark Prince. Michalczewski made a total of 15 consecutive defenses of his WBO light heavyweight title running his flawless record to 40-0 (33 KO4s). No other light heavyweight champion in history was able to defend his title as often. Only three of his challengers were reaching the final bell.

Confirmed by his outstanding accomplishments, Michalczewski, who will be making his 16^th defense on 28 August in Bremen against former WBC world champion Montell Griffin, continues to attack his American rival Roy Jones verbaly.

"I believe big fights like that [Jones-Michalczewski] must be growing", Michalczewski explains. "They need their time to realize. But the time has come now and Jones must finally take on me. The whole boxing world wants to see a fight between Jones and me. We should fight as long as we are both on a winning streak. There are only few of those possible big fights in boxing. It's Holyfield-Lewis, Oscar de la Hoya-Trindad and Michalczewski-Jones."

With Montell Griffin, Michalczewski faces the only man who could ever defeat Roy Jones as a professional. "I've seen some of his fights - live and on video. Not only those against Jones, but a couple of other fights as well", Michalczewski reports on his preperation for his next challenger. "He is a small and quick guy with quite a hard punch and he is pretty mobile." Michalczewski is sparring with 4 different partners, two of them as small and sturdy as Griffin. He will be training a total of 12 weeks for his upcoming fight.

Griffin conquered the undefeated Jones in 1997 by disqualification, but lost the rematch by first round knockout. Asked why he fights against somebody, who has already been beaten by Jones, Michalczewski replies: "Richard Frazier was my sparring partner in Hamburg a couple of years ago. I prepared with him for the Rocky fight in 496, because he was a southpaw", Michalczewski remembers.

"I don't see a problem with fighting former Jones opponents, when at the same time Roy Jones is fighting against my sparring partners", Michalzewski gibels.