It looks like former heavyweight champ Vitali Klitschko’s bid to become mayor of Kiev, Ukraine has fallen short. Results from Sunday’s elections have been counted from approximately 800 of the city’s 1026 polling stations and incumbent Leonid Chernovetsky holds a commanding 20 percentage point lead over Oleksandr Turchynov - the candidate from Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc - as well as Doktor Iron Fist Vitali Klitschko.

Last week we misstated that Klitschko was a member of the Tymoshenko bloc, the bYuT. He is instead the leader of his own bloc, Yellow PORA! or ПАРTIЯ ПОРА!, which while not specifically aligned with the bYuT also draws its roots from the Orange Revolution and is explicitly dedicated to stomping out corruption.

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Not only is José Sulaimán the president/godfather of the World Boxing Council (at least according to his wikipedia page entry) he’s also a shrewd political pundit. Two days ago Sulaimán issued a five- paragraph release on the WBC web page endorsing Vitali Klitschko in Sunday’s Kiev, Ukraine mayoral race. No word yet on whether he prefers Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Why is Sulaimán supporting Klitschko? Is it because he’s in favor of the Orange Revolution reforms and the political stylings Ukraine’s “improbably attractive” prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko of whose Bloc, the BYuT, Klitschko is a member.

Is José hopping mad about incumbent mayor’s Leonid Chernovetskyi’s alleged illegal privatization of $3BN worth of Kiev property? Is he just sick of the corruption?

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The shadow of Chris Byrd (40-4-1) will make his much ballyhooed light heavyweight debut tonight against Brooklyn’s Shaun George (16-2-2) on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights (9:00 p.m. EST).

Byrd’s most recent fight was last October when he was TKO’d in the 11th against 2004 Athens Super Heavyweight Olympic gold medalist Aleksandr Povetkin. Povetkin weighed in at 226 1/4, Byrd at 211 1/4. It was a far cry from Byrd’s own Olympic medaling weight: a svelte 165.

After winning the middleweight silver medal in Barcelona 1992 Byrd immediately placed himself on the heavyweight trajectory. “Guys I knew I could beat (at heavyweight) were making money,” he explained to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “(so) I started eating and didn’t stop.”

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Last week at jabandgrapple.com we told you about the proposed Vitali Klitschko - Samuel Peter fight and how Peter will fight some walkover in the interim. Well, a name for that walkover has been bandied about and it’s none other than Andrzej Gołota a/k/a Andrew Golota a/k/a the guy who was perilously close to winning the world heavyweight title in 1996 but couldn’t stop hitting Riddick Bowe in the unmentionables.

“He’s still fighting?” we wondered. It seems. He’s now 40-years-old and in the midst of a modestly successful three-fight comeback. The last time I even thought about Gołota was way back in 1998.

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Image details: Samuel Peter v James Toney served by picapp.com

ESPN reports that www.jabandgrapple.com’s favorite mayoral candidate Vitali Klitschko has just accepted a future WBC heavyweight title fight against the self-proclaimed Nigerian Nightmare Samuel Peter. The match is scheduled to take place sometime this October with a site in Germany being the the likely location. Peter will probably fight an interim fight sometime the summer while Klitschko is kissing babies, giving platform speeches and engaging in anti-corruption debates.

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Image details: Sports Gala - ‘Ball des Sports 2008′ served by picapp.com

The city is rife with political corruption. Business deals are all made under the table. Outside investors are scared. A hero is needed; someone to clean up the mess and make the city safe again. The city needs a fearless 6′7″ hero with fists of iron, a Ph.D. in philosophy, and good intentions.

Is our hero Batman? Is this Gotham City?

No. It’s former heavyweight champ Vitali Klitschko and the city is his hometown Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine and home to 3 million people. Vitali isn’t dressing up in a black costume and doing nighttime vigilante work he’s running for mayor.

This isn’t the first time the scholarly pugilist has thrown his hat in the political ring. He finished second in the 2006 Kiev mayoral race garnering 25% of the vote. This year, however, the New York Times reports that he leads the early polling.

Fight fans everywhere hope that his possible mayoral victory won’t spoil the currently-retired fighter’s comeback plans. Vitali would immediately be a heavyweight force despite his three-year layoff. But he adds “My biggest goal right now is to help create a modern, democratic Ukraine. To me, there is no fight more important than that.”