Michael Grant (Boxer)
Michael Grant (* August 4, 1972 in Chicago) is an American heavyweight boxer.
Amateur
He played only twelve fights, of which he has won eleven. He suffered his only defeat to Derrick Jefferson.
Professional career
The very large and muscular Grant gave his professional debut in 1994. Grants main weapon was and is his batting, but it lacks a good left hook. His coach was the Holyfield coach Don Turner.
In the build phase, he defeated 1996 Corey Sanders (not to be confused with the South African Corrie Sanders ), Ross Puritty and 1997 Lionel Butler, who had previously made by knockout wins over James " Bonecrusher " Smith and Tony Tubbs a name. Subsequently, he was the first boxer to beat the previous cruiserweight world champion Alfred Cole prematurely. In the next fight he won against the Cuban Jorge Luis González by first-round KO.
After another knockout victory against David Izon he was led in 1998 by the " Ring Magazine " among the top 10. Obed Sullivan Also, later World Cup opponents of Vitali Klitschko, went against Grant for the first time in his career knockout.
In 1999, he defeated Lou Savarese convincingly on points, had him twice on the ground and almost KO, but got bad reviews for performance. For the first time his meteoric rise seemed slowed down. Yet he came on cover of British magazine Boxing Monthly. He was only 26 years old and unbeaten in 30 fights.
The concerns grew, however, as he did not have to Andrzej Gołota only twice in the first round to the ground, but was clearly dominated in the sequence. Grant succeeded in the tenth round then still premature victory when Gołota, on points clear leader, gave up the fight as a result of a precipitate. However, this was attributed rather Gołotas labile psyche. With this victory he rose to become the mandatory challenger of the World Champion Lennox Lewis. Despite the distinctly mixed performance against Gołota many experts appreciated him even against Lewis as a favorite, interpreted the victory over Gołota as an expression of his fighters heart.
However, in the Weltmeisterschaftampf against Lewis on 29 April 2000, he had no chance, was beaten in the first round several times to the ground and eventually went to an uppercut in the second round KO.
With a comeback fight more than one years later against Jameel McCline he was injured early in the leg and had to give up in the first round. Ever since that fight, he was very insecure.
He struck out seven construction KO opponents until he ran against the then undefeated Dominick Guinn 2003. Guinn made the fight of his life and hit hard Grant KO.
Since then he has won three fights against opponents average construction. Meanwhile, he has been inactive for over a year.