By JIM KERNAGHAN -- London Free Press
 Every boxing club, every fight card has The Man and it remains the same from a seedy ghetto gym to a modern Olympic boxing venue.

 The Man at the Sydney Games is Felix Savon, leader of the Cuban boxing team, bearer of the flag personally handed to him by Fidel Castro, holder of the now-tiresome socialist torch handed to him by the past Man, compatriot Teofilo Stevenson.

 Savon will fight for his third consecutive Olympic gold medal Saturday and will again, after a likely victory, proclaim it in the honour of The Revolution.

 All very tiresome, of course. Just the opposite in the ring.

 You cannot deny excellence. It has been embossed on international boxing by the Cubans and if the 91-kilogram Savon is Stevenson's ideological successor, he also is his pugilistic heir.

 The murmur through Sydney Exhibition Centre confirmed it as the six-foot-six Savon strode in Thursday to face wily German Sebastian Kober, who disposed of Canada's Mark Simmons so easily.

 Kober actually won the first round against Savon before reality intruded. That reality is the Cuban is smart and lethal. After dispatching two preliminary opponents, he accumulated a 14-8 edge over the four-round distance to sail into the final.

 Things never change within the beak-bending brigade. Mexican supporters serenaded their representatives with ringside meanderings in sombreros and serapes. An American flag was raced around the perimeter.

 Up went a cry "U-U-Ukraine," and Ukrainian Sergey Dotsenko knelt and kissed the canvas upon outpointing Moldovan Vitalii Grusac in their 67-kilogram semifinal.

 And soon came the Savon match. The moment the bout ended, the crowd began pouring out, leaving a Russian and a Georgian to duke it out to a half-empty hall.

 It's what happens when The Man has appeared and left.

 To suggest Savon is merely a slightly smaller replica of the super-heavyweight Stevenson would be folly. He has had as many enticements from the professional ranks, including a purported $10-million offer to sign with one promoter and handed a blank contract by another after winning his second Olympic gold medal in Atlanta four years ago.

 In the endless speculation as to who would have beaten whom had boxing history brought all the greats in at the same era, many knowledgeable observers insist Stevenson would have cleaned out the professional heavyweight division almost exclusively with the deadliest right hand in the sport's history.

 The longtime world amateur and Olympic champion surely holds the record for one-punch knockouts.

 You can't say that about Savon. What you can say is he has won all but one of all the boxing tournaments -- Olympic, World, Pan-American, Goodwill Games -- he has contested since 1986, 15 in all.

 He is the reincarnation of Stevenson in one respect.

 "The nation where I was born has given me happiness," he once said. "When you abandon all that, then you are never really happy in life."

 Stevenson was saying stuff like that the night he crushed Big John Tate of the U.S. when he was The Man in Montreal seven Olympic Games ago.

 And the current Man is equally adamant about resisting the financial blandishments of pro boxing. You might not agree with his politics but it's not altogether difficult to argue that.

 Whose arm would you rather have over your shoulder, Fidel Castro's or Don King's as you approach your third Olympic gold medal bout?