Former heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko seemed to be an unstoppable force during his 14-year boxing career, making 9 successful defenses of his WBC title and compiling a total of 45 victories with 41 ending by way of knockout.
Known as ‘Dr. Ironfist’, Klitschko retired in 2012, with the fact that he’d never been knocked down in the boxing ring (the only two losses in his 47 fight career had resulted from a shoulder injury and a cut) further adding to his mystique.
However, Klitschko’s career in combat sports goes back further than that as prior to becoming a pro-boxer he had also competed in kickboxing, and it was during that period of time that the illusion that the Ukrainian star was invincible would prove to have been shattered.
Rumors that Klitschko had been KO’d in a kickboxing bout many years ago by a British fighter named Pele Reid had been circulating while he was still fighting, but it was a story that the boxing star was keen to sweep under the carpet at the time.
Who’s Pele Reid? Klitschko inquired when asked by reporters about the fight, though the reality was he knew only too well.
It was so long ago that I forgot all about him, Klitschko claimed. I lost that fight because of a kick to the thigh, not because of any punch. Lennox is the biggest puncher in the world and he couldn’t knock me out.
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Perhaps people would have just taken him at his word and that would have been an end to the matter if it hadn’t been for the fact that amateur footage of the knockout would later surface on the internet.
The moment Klitschko was clearly eager to forget took place back in 1992 at the WAKO European Kickboxing Championships in Bulgaria, with Klitschko being paired up with Reid in the 89 kg finals.
Reid was a big man himself, standing 6ft 4, but Klitschko still seemed to tower over him at an imposing 6′ 7 as the final began.
The first round was relatively evenly contested, but in the second Reid saw an opening and landed a perfectly timed spinning hook kick to Klitschko’s jaw. The blow dropped him instantly, bringing a swift conclusion to the match with the future star still lying dazed and confused on the mat when the footage ends some 30 seconds later.
As fate would have it both men ended up pursuing a career in boxing, but in that regard there was no contest with Klitschko going on to be one of the very best of his generation, while Reid started promisingly with 13 wins in a row before suffering a series of losses and is also now retired.
