Ron Borges thought this would be a good time to take an argument and try to strip it of all logic, facts and reason, and instead use it to keep toeing the party line that the heavyweight division sucks, and therefore, in turn, the Klitschko brothers are to blame.

Borges’ boxing writer resume is impeccable. I don’t doubt his boxing knowledge. But like many of today’s writers, he is holding a grudge against the modern heavyweight that is just way out of line.

His recent column over at The Sweet Science is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Borges goes out of his way to bash the brothers Klitschko, Wladimir and Vitali, for not doing things as what he sees being the right way.

So what are they doing wrong?

Apparently, they whine too much and want things their way. But let’s take a look at Borges’ arguments and see just where he goes wrong.

Argument #1:

“Now according to Klitschko, a unification fight with WBA title holder Nikolai Valuev is being held hostage by – drum roll – Don King and, to a lesser extent, German promoter Wilfried Sauerland, who in partnership hold the promotional rights to [Nicolai] Valuev. Klitschko is insisting he has offered Valuev a 50-50 split, a fair amount considering that each man holds one quarter of the major titles presently in existence. But he also says King is insisting on three years of options on him if he wins, which is absurd but typical if true.”

So a Klitshcko-Valuev fight is not made and Valuev’s two promoters are known to be two of the most difficult to deal with in all of boxing. King has a reputation for demanding rights to fighters if they beat his champion and Valuev has a reputation of not leaving his home base to fight anyone that could be considered a threat.

Borges goes on to conclude that

“The latter sounds fair enough, and so does a 50-50 split with Valuev, assuming that includes all revenues and not merely some of it, which may be a big assumption. King insisting on options comes as no surprise either, although how he gets around the [Muhammad] Ali Act is beyond me and hence it is difficult to fathom how any such demand would hold water legally. One has to wonder if that was anything more than posturing by King, assuming it ever happened in the first place.”

General conclusion: Klitschko’s fault.

Argument #2:

Why isn’t a fight with David Haye made yet?

That wouldn’t get the fight made, according to [Bernd] Boente, because Haye can’t deliver a deal for a British soccer stadium, which according to Boente reduces the undefeated Haye to something less than a mandatory challenger and hence means a purse reduction.

The facts on this one seem clear as day. Haye was given the opportunity to fight for a title, despite having no heavyweight qualifications to have earned him such a shot. Haye and his people are promising sold out soccer stadiums in London, which in turn is promising huge television money all over Europe.

Then Haye’s people say they can’t do a soccer stadium because of the economy. So they tell Klitschko that now they are no longer bringing any money to the table, you have to secure us a location in Germany, and Haye still has not earned his title shot. But in the court of public opinion, Haye is the guy that they need to fight.

Haye and his team showed their lack of experience and professionalism in negotiations and it may have cost Haye a shot at the title.

Conclusion: Klitschko is at fault and is ducking Haye, and the brothers just won’t fight anybody.

Argument #3:

Why don’t these guys just fight somebody? When the elder Klitschko came out of a four-year retirement he got an automatic title shot against [Sam] Peter his first fight back. Didn’t have to face anyone despite having not been in the ring with a decent heavyweight since [Lennox] Lewis beat his eye out of his head five years earlier. Neither the Klitschko brothers nor Boente were doing any screaming then that they were being given an unfair advantage while bypassing the many working heavyweights who hadn’t held the title hostage year after year claiming one injury after another.

Lesson one: When you retire as champion, you are given Champion Emeritus status, which entitles you to get a shot at your belt immediately upon returning to the ring. It is irrelevant who he had fought since his four-year layoff, as he had already done the work to guarantee him a shot at the Maskaev-Peter winner before he left the game.

And as for Lewis beating his eye out of his head — wow. Talk about some revisionist history. Yes, Lewis won on cuts, but if you think that’s the only relevant part of that story, you’re just being one-sided in your argument. Klitschko beat Lewis around the ring, was winning on all three cards and was desperate to continue the fight. Lewis collapsed into his corner after the sixth and final round and clearly had nothing left in the tank. After doing all he could to try to make a rematch, Lewis chose to retire rather than fight Vitali again. Lewis got the win, but there was a reason that Vitali won over the crowd in Los Angeles that night, and it wasn’t because Lewis beat his eye out of his head.

But well done with the sneaky way of slipping it in as one sentence that most people will gloss over. You probably tricked a lot of people on that one.

And as for “why don’t they just fight somebody?”, what are you talking about? Wladimir has fought the exact same number of times as your precious David Haye since winning the title. He just fought in December and Vitali fights this week. What is your argument? Who do you want them to fight, and just how often?

Argument #4:

They dictate terms as if they were two guys who actually attract fans, which outside of Germany they don’t, as proved by their consistently underwhelming pay-per-view numbers. It’s also why half the time they fight in Germany rather than in the U.S., and HBO doesn’t insist otherwise.

Boente was quoted saying a fight with Haye “doesn’t make sense if he doesn’t bring more to the table than a regular challenger like Hasim Rahman or Tony Thompson. Why pay him more than a mandatory challenger?’’

Maybe because a few people might actually be interested in watching?

So apparently the most important thing that a heavyweight needs to be is marketable in the United States. First of all, (and I may be wrong on this) I can’t remember a SINGLE Klitschko fight being on pay-per-view. So which PPV was underwhelming? None here in America.

Yes, a few people might be interested in watching a Klitschko-Haye fight. But when he hasn’t earned the fight, and there are mandatories out there that allow you to keep your titles and make more or as much money, why should he fight him. Because a few delusional Europeans think his glass-chin can withstand a real heavyweights punch (even though it barely survived cruiserweight)?

Tell David Haye to fight someone that is worth a damn and he will earn the right to fight for the title, rather than just try to talk his way into it. One win in the division over Monte Barrett does not a contender make.

Haye had a fight with either Klitschko presented to him on a silver platter, and he and his people pissed it away. Is that the Klitschko’s fault? Borges thinks so.

Argument #5:

Let us examine, for a moment, who these two guys have beaten. On his “march’’ to the title, Vitali holds wins over Vaughn Bean, Larry Donald, Kirk Johnson, Corrie Sanders, Danny Williams and Peter. He also sandwiched in a four-year layoff in there somewhere.

His brother has beaten a murderer’s row that includes Chris Byrd, Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, Lamon Brewster, Sultan Ibragimov, Thompson and Rahman. The latter, Rahman, had been beaten in his career by Oleg Maskaev, John Ruiz, James Toney, Holyfield and Lewis yet is arguably the best guy Wladimir Klitschko ever beat.

Wladimir beats two titlists (Byrd, Ibragimov) to win the belts he currently has, beats three mandatory defenses (Rahman, Austin, Brewser), and two guys who were a combined 60-1 that everyone said he had to fight (Thompson, Brock). Who gives a shit if you think it was a “murderer’s row”? It was the best heavyweights in the world at the time. Why not point out who he didn’t fight? Oh, yeah — he fought them all.

As for Vitali, you conveniently leave out that he was not the champion and was trying to get himself a fight with Lennox Lewis. It wasn’t his responsibility to take the most marketable or biggest fights, it was his responsibility to try to win a title. In those fights listed, he won two title eliminators and one title, while also beating Lewis around the ring in a loss.

And Rahman is arguably the best guy that Wladimir ever beat? Really? What world do you live in? Perhaps in 2001 he would have had an argument, but even the biggest Klitschko diehards will tell you that he was not much of a challenge at the time they fought. But he was a mandatory and Klitschko fulfilled his obligation to the sanctioning bodies by beating the living daylights out of him. Everybody who follows boxing will rank Chris Byrd and Sam Peter well above Rahman, at least at the times that they fought.

Then Borges finishes out the column with this gem of an argument.

Argument #6:

And these guys are making demands and setting terms? What do they bring to the table besides big German TV money? Good PR and HBO’s checkbook. One of these days someone at Time-Warner may actually take a look at what they’ve been paid and ask Ross Greenberg a simple question? Why?

As for Valuev, why should he help the Klitschkos unify half the title when they have no intention of ever unifying all of it? They never had the slightest interest in helping him earlier in his career when his promoter kept trying to lure one of them into the ring.

It seems clear Valuev loses to either Klitschko because he can’t spell F-I-G-H-T let alone actually do it, so the world is hardly crying out for the match despite the Klitschkos’ claims to the contrary. No one cares.

The fact is for all their posturing, pouting, palavering, they own title belts won against lousy opposition. That is not all their fault but most of the sporting world really couldn’t care less about them or the heavyweight division. If they fight, fine. If they don’t, just as fine. Valuev? Haye? Gomez? Chris Arreola?

Who cares?

I’ll summarize this one: What have the Klitschko’s done to earn the right to call the shots during negotiations?

Oh, I don’t know — BE THE UNDISPUTED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONS? Seriously, what haven’t they done to get the upper hand in negotiations?

But the final argument is the one that gets me, summarized as “it doesn’t matter anyway, since I don’t care about the guys their not fighting, either.”

Exactly. You don’t care about any of them. They keep beating the guys who earn their spot as the mandatory defense or number one contender, and you don’t care to give them credit. You don’t care to see them fight Haye, but you have the balls to call them out for not doing it when other fights offer more money?

I’ve always respected Ron Borges as a boxing writer, but this is just plain old fashioned hatred. Sorry the Klitschkos were born in the wrong country. Believe me, if either of the brothers had the exact same resume and were American, they’d be the biggest stars in sports today.

Imagine a 6’7″ white guy from California who knocked out everyone he fought, while having his doctorate degree. If you don’t think he’d be a superstar, you’re just flat out wrong.

Just like Ron Borges.