Heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko had finished training for the day about two weeks ago but instead of spending his free time that evening relaxing at his camp high in the Austrian mountains, he instead broke out a video of one of his past fights to study it yet again.
He has seen that video many, many times and he never wants to forget it. He wants to remember every single detail. But it's not even really necessary for him to watch it anymore, because it is all seared into his memory forever.
It was not a video of one of his many dominating title defenses, nor was it a video of one of his sensational knockouts. He was not viewing it because he thought perhaps the opponent on that video might somehow box in a similar style to that of 33-year-old Bulgarian contender Kubrat Pulev (20-0, 11 KOs), the mandatory challenger Klitschko will meet in the 17th defense of his second title reign on Saturday (HBO, 4:45 p.m. ET/PT) in the first fight of a new three-fight contract with HBO at the O2 World arena in Hamburg, Germany.
No, Klitschko was once again reviewing a video of his most harrowing defeat, a fifth-round knockout loss to Lamon Brewster in a fight for a vacant world title in Las Vegas a decade ago. It was April 10, 2004. Klitschko remembers it like yesterday.
He was crushing 11-to-1 underdog Brewster with ease. He was beating him pillar to post and dropped him in the fourth round of a completely one-sided fight. But then, out of nowhere, Klitschko ran out of gas and went down under a barrage of punches near the end of the fifth round. He was not really hurt, but he was so exhausted that he could barely move and the referee stopped the fight, giving Brewster a huge upset.
Klitschko (62-3, 53 KOs), who had suffered the third knockout loss of his career -- and second in 13 months -- seemed mentally broken as much as he was physically exhausted. He was left for dead by almost everybody after the embarrassing defeat.
As horrible a moment as it was for Klitschko, he never wants to forget that feeling even as he has forged one of the all-time great heavyweight careers, during which he avenged the loss to Brewster three years later in a one-sided sixth-round shellacking to retain the title he had won four fights after losing to Brewster.
"I was watching the HBO broadcast of my first fight with Brewster, which I lost, and the commentators were saying that's it for me as a heavyweight contender. That's it," Klitschko told ESPN.com. "People said I had no chin, no stamina, no heart, no nothing. People maybe have forgotten about that fight and what was said about me afterward but I didn't. I never have. It's my motivation. Every time I fight I want to show people how much more talent I have and how much more I have in my arsenal that I didn't show that night.
"I'm gonna be thankful to Lamon Brewster to my grave. It was a great experience. I wouldn't change anything. The fight was fantastic. For four rounds I was winning easily and whatever happened doesn't matter. But it was a fantastic experience. When I look at this fight it gives me such motivation and freshness. I'm not done with my payback. I'm paying back everyone who said what they said about me after that fight. My ego is very big as an athlete. It's all payback."
Klitschko, 38, of Ukraine, has won 20 fights in a row since losing to Brewster and has established himself as an all-time great. In 2006, he smashed Chris Byrd in a seventh-round knockout victory to claim a world title, and he has unified three major belts and taken over the lineal title.
He has been untouchable since. Forget about losing fights. Klitschko, who has faced all comers, has barely lost any rounds during his 8½-year title reign, which is the second longest in heavyweight history behind only the great Joe Louis' reign of 11 years, 8 months, 8 days.
Klitschko's 16 consecutive defenses rank third all-time in heavyweight history behind only Louis' 25, the all-time record for any weight division, and Larry Holmes' 20.
Yet Klitschko still is obsessed with the loss to Brewster in the name of payback.
"I ran out of gas. How or why? I have no answer for you," Klitschko said. "I was just out of gas. Lamon kept pushing. I have a lot of respect for him. He won and became champion. I will be thankful to Lamon until my grave. It's something that changed my life. I'm not sure what I would have become had I won. That fight changed my life for the good.
"All of the criticism that I received I remember. I remember people turning their back to me. It was something I had to face in my life. Then things changed tremendously. I knew I could lose my sporting career if I didn't change. I trained myself in a certain way after that."
Klitschko's decision to watch the Brewster fight over and over started as a fleeting thought. He had been watching various fights of Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Thomas Hearns.
"Then you forget to watch yourself. I'm thinking, 'How can I improve?' You can improve not just by looking at others but looking at yourself," he said. "So I was studying my mistakes in that fight."
That fight with Brewster happened to be Klitschko's first fight with the late, great Emanuel Steward as his trainer. Even though Klitschko, who is now trained by Steward disciple Johnathon Banks, changed much of his team in the wake of the defeat, Steward remained and helped mold Klitschko into the winning machine he has become.
Klitschko is without peer and wants to keep it that way. Ali had Joe Frazier as a great rival. Hearns had Sugar Ray Leonard. Klitschko is not interested in having one. He loves that his fights are utterly one-sided.
"I don't want to have a rival. I want to roll over my natural rival, whoever that is. I want to destroy him before he gets his head up," said Klitschko, the 1996 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist. "I want to outclass that person, Pulev and everyone else I fight. I don't want to give him a chance to do anything and I want to knock my opponent out any time I want.
"I understand my fights can be boring but at the end of the day it's about lasting as long as [49-year-old] Bernard Hopkins has lasted. You cannot not be a fan of his. My goal is to have as much health as Bernard Hopkins. And my other goal is that none of my rivals touch me and they will get knocked out. I'm the dictator in the ring. I'm not going to give them a chance to touch me."
That mentality all stems from what happened against Brewster. Klitschko took satisfaction in defeating him in a rematch, during which Klitschko broke his left hand but won easily anyway.
But even having avenged the defeat, Klitschko recounted a story of just how much Brewster, who is now retired after suffering a serious eye injury, is part of his daily life.
Not too long after their first fight he ran into Brewster and his manager at a Los Angeles restaurant. The manager gave him Brewster's business card. The front of it had a picture of Brewster knocking Klitschko down.
Klitschko was a bit insulted, but bit his lip and took the card.
"I said to myself that one day I will have Lamon sign the card for me," Klitschko said. "I kept this card in my gym bag for years. When we had the rematch I said to myself, 'I'm going to win this fight and I am going to sign the card and give it to Lamon.'"
After Klitschko knocked Brewster out, he went to his dressing room -- his left glove still on because of the busted hand -- and posed for a picture with him holding the card. Instead of signing it and giving it to Brewster, he asked Brewster to sign it for him. Brewster obliged and Klitschko has carried it with him since. Klitschko also has the gloves that he wore in the loss to Brewster on display in his office. He wants to always be reminded of what happened on that spring night in Las Vegas a decade ago.
He said that loss made him who he is today as he heads into yet another title defense, one originally scheduled for Sept. 6 but postponed because Klitschko suffered a torn left biceps during a sparring session two weeks before the fight.
"That fight was completely the turning point of my life, not just my career, but my life," Klitschko said. "I changed the way I wanted to do things. There is no way I would be champion today without that loss. I got to know the other side in the hardest way."
It's a side that Klitschko never wants to go back to but one he is all too happy to remind himself of daily.