Unknown and Likely to Stay So

Did you ever think you’d not know who the heavyweight champion of the world was? Or what he looked like?

I mean, he’s like the president, right? All over the world people know him. Can you imagine anybody not knowing who Jack Dempsey was? The Manassa Mauler and all that.

Even in the days before newspaper photos, people knew John L. Sullivan. The Boston Strongboy, “I-can-lick-any-man-in-the-house” and all that.

You think people didn’t know Joe Louis on sight? The Brown Bomber, no less. Jack Johnson. They knew him, all right. They went around looking for “White Hopes,” for him, if you can believe that.

Everyone knew Muhammad Ali on sight. Herdsmen in Kurdistan could pick him out of a crowd. Most recognized face on the planet.

But that was then. This is now. Can you come up with an image of today’s champion? Well, to begin with, champions come today in triplicate, quadruplicate, quintuplicate. They could fill a small bus. There’s one for every three letters of the alphabet.

So, who’s the heavyweight champ today? Who’s the successor to the Manassa Mauler, Brown Bomber and Gentlemen Jim?

Give up? I’ll give you a hint: He’s got big brown eyes, a nice build, goes about 6 feet 2 and 233 pounds, smiles a lot. He learned how to fight in prison, he’s 29, on the straight and narrow now, and I’m sure he’s nice to his mother. His name is Bruce.

Wait just a darn minute! you say. Bruce? The heavyweight champion is named Bruce? Never! The heavyweight champion is named Jack, Joe, something Arabic, perhaps, or Mike. John L., maybe. James J. But not Bruce!

Well, deal with it. The heavyweight champion of the world, 1996--one of them, anyway--is Bruce, by God, Seldon.

You know, back in the old days, there used to be a fighter who went by the name “Unknown Winston.” He was practically a celebrity compared to Bruce Seldon.

And, there used to be a term to describe mystery guest titleholders: cheese champions.

I wouldn’t say there was a strong odor of Gorgonzola emanating from Bruce Seldon. But he did get to the title in a roundabout way. Got it by osmosis.

Bruce acceded to the most prestigious crown in Fistiana by beating--are you ready for this?--Tony Tucker. Now, how Tony got it, God knows. Maybe he won it in a church raffle.

The official line is that Tucker got it because George Foreman wouldn’t defend his World Boxing Assn. crown against Tucker. Now, why Foreman refused to face Tucker is not known. Perhaps, he couldn’t place him. Thought it had been a typo or something.

So, Bruce Seldon was able to don the mantle of Dempsey, Tunney, Jack Johnson and Joe Louis by beating Tony Tucker, whoever he was.

Now, ownership of the heavyweight championship of the world can be a very valuable commodity. But only if you’re the type of guy who can snarl traffic when you make an appearance at a downtown restaurant. Bruce Seldon is not your basic Brown Bomber or Manassa Mauler. Bruce was more like your basic invisible man. A nice part for Claude Rains.

His story does bear a certain resemblance to Rocky of the movies, to be sure. I mean, hewas just standing there, minding his own business, when someone came along and said, in effect, “Kid, how’d you like to be WBA heavyweight champion of the world? “

Since, Bruce wasn’t doing anything in particular at the time, he went along. He was kind of the Unknown Winston of the ‘90s.

How unknown is Unknown Seldon? Well, his last fight before Tony Tucker was in that hotbed of big-time boxing, Quito, Ecuador. And, at the final news conference before his fight with Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand Saturday night, Tyson’s manager kept referring to him as “Sheldon.”

Bruce brings a well-sculptured physique to the fights but little else. In fact, there is some notion he may be bringing another work of art to the contest--a jaw of purest Waterford crystal.

It is the contention of some gym hangers-on that Bruce has a jaw you can see through and that it was clearly evident the only other times he fought high-ranking pugs. Oliver McCall, a former champ, knocked him out at Atlantic City, N.J., in nine, in 1991. And in his next fight, Bruce was knocked out in one by Riddick Bowe.

Going into a fight with Tyson with a vase for a jaw is like going into a fire carrying a can of kerosene but Bruce Seldon has no choice. In his last defense of his crown, he met a fighter named Joe Hipp in almost complete secrecy.

As Tyson’s co-manager, Rory Holloway, pointed out--in dead seriousness--” ’Sheldon’ can become more famous as Mike Tyson’s 45th knockout victim than he can by knocking out all the Joe Hipps in the division.”

It isn’t as if that’ll make him a trivia question. He already is.