Poll Position: How the Fans Voted

We in the States love the way the words Johnson, Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano, Liston, Ali and Tyson roll off the tongue. They were homegrown heavyweight champs, as American as apple pie, but we were so awestruck by their skills that their nationality was accepted, a given, an afterthought (except in the complicated case of Ali). But what that great internationalist Lennox Lewis (Jamaica, Canada, London) started, seconded by Vitali Klitschko, was the rise of heavyweight champions from overseas, specifically from the former Eastern Bloc countries, from what was once known as the USSR. The Belarusian Sergei Liakhovich won the WBO crown in convincing fashion Saturday night over Lamon Brewster, the huge Russian Nicolay Valuev has John Ruiz's old WBA belt, the Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko will probably emerge with the IBF title when he meets Chris Byrd in Germany, and the Uzbek Oleg Maskaev may crash Hasim Rahman through the ropes a second time when the two men have their WBC rematch. Under the circumstances, do you think the reign of the American heavyweight champion is almost over?