For years, Vitali Klitschko has battered opponents in the boxing ring while taking his own share of gruesome punishment in one of the world's most brutal sports. The World Boxing Council's reigning heavyweight champion stands 6-feet-7-inches tall and is known for brute strength, usually winning fights by knocking out his opponents. Along the way he earned a Ph.D. in sports science, leading to a popular nickname worthy of a James Bond villain: Dr. Ironfist.
More recently, however, Klitschko has entered another rough-and-tumble arena — politics. Klitschko's stated intention to run for president of his native Ukraine in 2015 is less visceral and largely unknown to many casual boxing fans around the world, who mostly recognize him for his fearsome punches. But in Ukraine, where Klitschko leads a popular opposition party amid ongoing turmoil in the streets of Kiev, his mission supersedes any sport.
It also presents a complicated choice for Klitschko himself: defend his WBC title for the first time since 2012 sometime next year, or devote his full attention to unseating Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2015.
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A YouTube video that emerged this weekend shows Klitschko's influence in Ukraine. Demonstrations against Yanukovych have protested his decision to abandon a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of strengthening the former Soviet territory's economic ties with Russia.
Dozens of Ukrainians were reportedly injured on Sunday in clashes with police, as an estimated 300,000 people protested Yanukovych's resistance to further Western integration in the country's capital city.
This clip, however, shows a bullhorn-wielding Klitschko purportedly attempting to keep the demonstration peaceful and dissuade protestors from confronting police dressed in riot gear.

Klitschko is chairman of the opposition Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party. The acronym UDAR translates to "punch" in English, and the party advocates a pro-Western platform while harping against governmental corruption and indifference. Klitschko first announced his 2015 run for president in October.
But that could conflict with another hotly anticipated showdown set for next year. Klitschko had until Nov. 30 to tell the WBC whether he would defend his heavyweight title in 2014. But the WBC granted him an extension until Dec. 15 to decide if he'll defend his title, vacate it or perhaps retire from the sport altogether.
WBC executive secretary Mauricio Sulaiman said the "holiday season was fundamental for this delay in communications" and Klitschko's resulting extension, according to the boxing site Fightnews.com. Many boxing fans have bemoaned Klitschko's delay in defending his title, calling him a diva and arguing he needs to either pick politics or pugilism full-time.
While Klitschko himself hasn't publicly linked his indecision over fighting in 2014 to Ukraine's 2015 presidential election, simple logic dictates that one pursuit would detract major time and resources from the other. Rising tensions between citizens and Yanukovych only raise the stakes.
While Klitschko is far from the only star athlete to begin a career in politics, his status as a hero in Ukraine and the country's current political turmoil set his situation apart. As David Frum notes on CNN.com, Ukraine has become something of a political proxy war amid competition between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West.
Klitschko's rising profile also comes against the backdrop of the Ukraine's violent political history. Current president Yanukovych unsuccessfully ran for president against Viktor Yushchenko in 2004. During that campaign, Yushchenko was allegedly poisoned. Yushchenko fell violently ill that autumn. Yushchenko was hospitalized and eventually recovered, although his face remained disfigured for years.
On Twitter, where Vitali Klitschko shares an account with his brother and fellow heavyweight boxer Wladimir, posts related to the current Ukrainian political climate have not appeared. Same goes for the brothers' spiffy official Klitschko.com site, which has stuck to boxing news and updates on the brothers' charity work. Younger brother Wladimir, meanwhile, has maintained a different type of public profile recently, sharing photos of himself inside and outside of the ring and paying tribute to his recently deceased trainer Emanuel Steward online.
But another site, Klichko.org, promotes the UDAR party, lauds Vitali as a hero seeking to deliver Ukrainians a better life, and provides news on opposition gatherings and protests.
So where did Vitali Klitschko discover his political passion? His current status as a Ukrainian leader looking to increase economic and cultural ties to the West may have actually taken root many years ago, when he first visited the United States as a young fighter. From a 2007 Daily Mail profile:
At the time going to the U.S. for Russians was like going to the moon. I went to America believing it would be a horrible country full of horrible people. I returned home with bubblegum for my brother and lots of Coca-Cola, which we'd all heard about but never tasted.
My father was in the air force and was, naturally, a Communist. I told him everything I'd been told about America was rubbish, the people were happy, smiling and friendly, and the country was wonderful. He told me they'd made a special effort to give that impression to me, but it was a false impression. It's incredible to look back on those days.
The Soviet territory Klitschko ventured out from all those years ago is named for the Slavic word "ukraina," which translates to "borderlands." Now Ukraine's most famous son finds himself in a borderland of his own, straddling both the defense of his heavyweight boxing title and involvement in his country's rapidly intensifying political upheaval.
Images: Christof Stache, Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images