Size is Everything

Nikolai Valuev is the current WBA World Heavyweight champion, the one title in the sport’s premier division not currently held by the Klitschko brothers. He stands out from anyone else in boxing, either in the past or present, for one very obvious reason – his size. The Russian stands 7ft 2in tall in his socks, and weighs 23 and a half stone. Not surprisingly this makes him the biggest heavyweight boxer in history. It pretty much makes him the biggest man in history.
I sparred him with the other month in Berlin. When I say sparred, I was throwing right hooks into his belly, and he was plonking his fist on my head as if hammering in a nail, or landing upper cuts as if scooping up something off the floor. Needless to say, I was padded up to my eyeballs in protection.
Now this, in anyone’s language, was pretty scary stuff. But not as scary as what happened afterwards. I’m not going to go into graphic detail, just to say that the Russian joined me in the communal showers and ever since I have had both nightmares and a major crisis of confidence.We'll leave it at that!