Opportunity knocks for HW McCline

Dean Juipe

Monday, Dec. 2, 2002 | 9:49 a.m.

Jameel McCline takes a moment to run the question through the trappings of his mind.

"Am I overwhelmed by this?" he says, repeating the inquiry as if for emphasis.

"Well," he eventually volunteers. "I'm trying to be diplomatic, but, yeah, of course I'm overwhelmed.

"You know the story. You know this is a dream come true for me."

The "story" that McCline alludes to is his past: five years in prison for gunrunning; a 2-2-1 start to his professional boxing career; and, to many observers' surprise, a series of impressive, if somewhat unexpected, victories in the last two years that have upped his record to 28-2-3 and put him in the ring with would-be heavyweight superstar Wladimir Klitschko, this Saturday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Appearing relaxed and at ease Sunday in his hotel suite on the host site's 22nd floor, McCline acknowledges the pressure of a major fight is unrelenting.

"It'll be the biggest day of my life," he says, looking ahead to his scheduled 12-round bout with Klitschko. "There'll be some nerves involved.

"But it's up to me, as the professional I am, to set that aside. This is a huge opportunity for me, and handling all the emotions that go into a big fight is part of the challenge."

McCline, 31, has become very good at handling challenges. Since making his Las Vegas debut with a fight against King Ipitan two years ago at the Hard Rock, he has gone on to also defeat Al Cole, Michael Grant, Lance "Goofi" Whitaker and Shannon Briggs in a steady succession of make-or-break bouts.

The latter fight was worth $542,000 to McCline; this one with Klitschko will bring him $1 million.

"Klitschko has seen some big events before, but Jameel has clearly faced superior opposition to what Klitschko's been fed," said McCline's manager, Alan Wartski. "Each fight Jameel has had in the last couple of years has been bigger than the one before."

This one here is real big.

Klitschko -- half of a vaunted brother combination that has taken the boxing world's fancy -- is 39-1 and a minus 500 betting favorite. McCline is a plus 350 in the sports book at Mandalay Bay.

Trained by Jimmy Glenn, McCline sees the fight as one that matches men with at least a couple of similarities.

"I was shocked when he first took the fight, but after thinking about it I realized we were a lot alike," McCline said. "We're both pure athletes. And if he can match the hand speed that I have, it should make for a tremendous fight."

Klitschko, coming off a TKO-6 victory over a faded Ray Mercer last June in Atlantic City, admits to trying to add weight for this fight in an effort to even up the scales with the 264-pound McCline.

"I think I put a lot of fear in these guys," McCline said, adding that Briggs also made it a point to add weight for their bout. "I mean, here's Klitschko having all this success at 243 pounds and now he feels the need to get bigger to fight me."

Klitschko's press file is getting thicker, too, and just this week he's profiled in ESPN The Magazine in an article entitled "Boxing's Great Bright Hope." The lengthy story makes only a passing reference to McCline and the Dec. 7 fight.

"I get 5 percent of the press that this kid gets," McCline said, seemingly without any bitterness. "I guess after this fight I'll have proved myself to all the nonbelievers.

"But I'm not out to prove anything to anyone. I'm always out to prove something to myself."

A collegiate basketball player (at Oneonta and later Potsdam, both in New York), McCline had only one amateur fight at the time he was released from prison in 1994. After a sluggish start, he has not only met all comers but dispatched each with a certain flair.

His five most recent opponents have a collective record of 140-15-4.

"I've never turned anyone down," McCline said. "I didn't take the easy road in getting here and I was a 9-1 underdog against Grant and a 4-1 underdog against Goofi.

"Being the underdog has always been fine with me."

McCline said he's physically fit and that his health is superb after a grueling camp that included 140 rounds of sparring with the likes of Cole and Maurice Harris. "From breakfast at 8 a.m. to watching tapes before going to bed, I was focused on this fight all day every day," he said.

"One of my greatest assets is that I won't be outworked," he added. "No one ever says they want to take me to the 'deep waters' (i.e., later rounds) because no matter what kind of fast pace they set, I can handle it."

He went 10 rounds with Briggs in his last outing, April 27 at Madison Square Garden in New York. McCline lost the opening round but won the next nine on each of the judges' cards, yet he left the ring with a good deal of respect for his opponent.

"Briggs may not be the strongest guy I ever fought, but he had the sharpest punches," McCline said. "I was hurt a couple of times. But I'm big and strong, too, and a tremendous athlete."

He believes his arsenal is especially formidable for a man of his size.

"I am definitely going to set precedents for big men," he says. "The hand speed, the combinations, the foot speed that I have are not things that are usually seen in big men. But it all comes naturally to me."

With a lingering problem -- ligament damage in his left hand -- surgically repaired since his fight with Briggs, McCline feels he's primed to upset the Klitschko bandwagon.

"No mistake about it, Klitschko's an awesome talent and a great fighter," McCline said. "But I don't think he has the hand speed I do, and that and the rapid-fire combinations and footwork that I have will make the difference for me."

Aiding McCline's ability to get a fight with Klitschko is his No. 1 ranking with the lightly regarded World Boxing Organization; Klitschko is the WBO champion.

"They wanted to protect Vitali so that he could get a fight with Lennox Lewis," Wartski said of the Klitschkos' management team, when asked how it is that McCline is fighting the supposedly tougher of the two brothers. "They would never have taken a fight for Vitali against Jameel when all they had to do was go through Larry Donald to get a fight with Lewis."

Vitali Klitschko and Lewis will meet next spring in Las Vegas.

By then, either Wladimir Klitschko will be past this hurdle and in a fantastic position, or McCline will have beaten him and moved into that elite position himself.

"Boxing is a dollar and a dream," McCline theorizes. "I kind of knew I might get here, but I didn't have a clue what it would take and what it would really be like."

The next step is occupying a penthouse suite, and both literally and figuratively it's only a few floors away.