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| Date | 22 April 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venue | SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | IBF/IBO Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Klitschko defeated Byrd by 7th round TKO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chris Byrd vs. Wladimir Klitschko II, billed as "Revenge Is The Name Of The Game", was a professional boxing match contested on 22 April 2006 for the IBF and vacant IBO heavyweight championship. [2]
After beating Evander Holyfield in 2002 to win the IBF title, Byrd has successfully defended the IBF belt four times against Fres Oquendo, Andrew Golota, Jameel McCline, and DaVarryl Williamson. At the time he was ranked as the best Heavyweight in the world by Ring magazine (Wladimir Klitschko was 8th). [3]
Klitschko had won four fights in his comeback from his shock defeat to Lamon Brewster while trying to regain the WBO title he had lost to Corrie Sanders in 2003. [4]
The two men had fought six years earlier with Wladimir winning via a unanimous decision.
The fight was a one sided affair with Klitschko dominating Byrd before Klitschko's right hook finished off the American 41 seconds into round 7, the second time Byrd was floored in the fight.
Byrd had originally planned to fight then reigning WBA champion Nicolai Valuev; [5] he would instead go on to lose to Alexander Povetkin before briefly returning to the light heavyweight division and ultimately retiring in 2010 with the record of 41–5–1. [6]
Klitschko held the IBF title for a record-breaking 3,507 days before his defeat at the hands of Tyson Fury in November 2015.
This fight would mark the fourth time trainer Emanuel Steward guided a fighter to a Heavyweight title, after Evander Holyfield, Oliver McCall and Lennox Lewis.
Confirmed bouts: [7]
| Winner | Loser | Weight division/title belt(s) disputed | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
 Sebastian Sylvester |  Steven Bendall | EBU Middleweight Title | 3rd round TKO. |
 Oleg Platov |  Colin Kenna | Heavyweight (8 rounds) | 5th round TKO. |
 Alexander Abraham | Mazen Girke | Super Welterweight (8 rounds) | Unanimous decision. |
| Timo Hoffmann |  Abraham Okine | Heavyweight (8 rounds) | Unanimous decision. |
| Rene Dettweiler |  Ondřej Pála | Heavyweight (8 rounds) | Unanimous decision. |
 Alexander Povetkin |  Friday Ahunanya | Heavyweight (6 rounds) | Unanimous decision. |
| Andy Lee | Wassim Khalil | Middleweight (6 rounds) | 5th round TKO. |
| Country | Broadcaster |
|---|---|
| Germany | Das Erste |
 United States | HBO |
Lennox Claudius Lewis is a boxing commentator and former professional boxer who competed from 1989 to 2003. He is a three-time world heavyweight champion, a two-time lineal champion, and held the undisputed championship. Holding dual British and Canadian citizenship, Lewis represented Canada as an amateur at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics; in the latter, he won a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division.
Evander Holyfield is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and was the only boxer in history to win the undisputed championship in two weight classes in the "three belt era", a feat later surpassed by Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk, who became two-weight undisputed champions in the four-belt era. Nicknamed "the Real Deal", Holyfield is the only four-time world heavyweight champion, having held the unified WBA, WBC, and IBF titles from 1990 to 1992, the WBA and IBF titles again from 1993 to 1994, the WBA title a third time from 1996 to 1999; the IBF title a third time from 1997 to 1999 and the WBA title for a fourth time from 2000 to 2001.
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Wladimir Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, quick hand speed, great physical strength which he employed when clinching opponents, and his athletic footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.
Christopher Cornelius Byrd is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2009. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having first won the WBO title in 2000 after an upset corner stoppage over then-undefeated Vitali Klitschko. In his first title defense later that year, he lost to Vitali's brother Wladimir Klitschko. In 2002, Byrd defeated Evander Holyfield to win the IBF heavyweight title for his second reign as world champion. He made four successful defenses until losing his title again to Wladimir Klitschko in a 2006 rematch. He was ranked by BoxRec in the world's top 10 heavyweight from 1998 to 2004, reaching his highest ranking of No.3 in 2000.
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Vitali Klitschko and Wladimir Klitschko, known as the Klitschko Brothers, are Ukrainian former professional boxers. During their peak years between 2004 and 2015, they were considered the dominant world heavyweight champions of their era, and among the most successful champions in boxing history. In 2011, they entered the Guinness World Records book as brothers with most world heavyweight title fight wins. In the years following the retirement of heavyweight titlist Lennox Lewis in 2004, the Klitschko brothers would eventually accumulate all four major world heavyweight titles. Known for their exceptionally large physiques, speed, and punching power, they each developed a style that utilized their athleticism and arm reach to break down opponents.
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