Professional Career
Michalczewski won the German International light heavyweight (175-pound) title on 13 February 1993, a title for foreign born fighters based in Germany. He then won the IBF Intercontinental Championship on 22 May 1993. Finally, on 10 September 1994, Michalczewski captured the WBO Light Heavyweight Championship with a 12-round decision over defending champion Leeonzer Barber.
Between then and March 2003, Michalczewski made 23 successful defenses of his WBO title. Three months after beating Barber, he won the WBO Cruiserweight title with a knockout of Nestor Giovannini. However, he soon gave up that title to continue campaigning as a light heavyweight.
On 13 June 1997, he defeated Virgil Hill over 12 rounds to add Hill's WBA and IBF titles to his own. However, Michalczewski soon lost both titles. The WBA stripped him for displaying its belt along with that of the WBO, an organization it didn't recognize. The IBF did so a few weeks later, when Michalczewski was unable to defend his title against mandatory challenger William Guthrie within 30 days.
After beating Hill, Michalczewski knocked out 14 consecutive opponents, all in defense of his WBO titles. On 1998, he defeated Drake Thadzi. In 2000, he went on to defeat Graciano Rocchigiani.
For years, a bout between Michalczewski and Roy Jones Jr. was discussed, but never happened for various reasons, such as both fighters not wanting to fight outside of their home countries. Both of them blamed each other for the fight never happening.
Michalczewski had a perfect record of 48 wins and no losses when he faced Julio César González of Mexico in defense of his title on 18 October 2003. Coming into the fight, he was within one victory of tying Rocky Marciano's all-time record for an undefeated record by a world champion boxer. A win also would have put him just one victory short of Joe Louis' all-time record for successful defenses at any weight class. However, the now 35-year-old Michalczewski was unable to pull it off. He lost a controversial split decision to the 27-year-old Gonzalez at the Color Line Arena in Hamburg, Germany and his career record dropped to 48–1.
Despite the loss, he still holds the record for the most consecutive successful title defenses at light heavyweight.
In October 2004, it was announced that Michalczewski would come out of retirement to fight France's Fabrice Tiozzo for the WBA Light Heavyweight title on 26 February 2005, in Hamburg. Michalczewski lost by sixth round rechnical knockout and declared the end of his career in May 2005.
Michalczewski was to come out of retirement to fight German boxing icon Sven Ottke in Germany in May 2008, but the bout never materialized.
Read more about this topic: Dariusz Michalczewski
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