Wladimir Klitschko Not overly Impressed With Ibragimov

International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KOs) hasn’t seemed particularly motivated lately in the recent press conferences leading up to his unification bout with World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov (22-0-1, 17 Kos). In fact, if I were to guess at how Wladimir is feeling oveall, he seems to actually be bored with his upcoming February 23rd bout agaist the 32 year-old Ibragimov.

Although I can hardly blame Klitschko, since Ibragimov isn’t the type of figher that Wladimir has had trouble with during his career. Indeed, in all three knockout losses Klitschko has suffered during his career, all of them have been by knockout artists - Lamon Brewster, Corrie Sanders and Ross Purity - all of which punch incredibly hard. In comparison, Ibragimov is more of light to moderate puncher, and instead relies on landing sharp combinations and then quickly moving out of range.

It’s a style that works well against slower fighters that don’t have the handspeed needed to make Ibragimov pay when he’s deliverying his short combinations. Another thing that Ibragimov has going for him is the fact that’s a southpaw fighter. This really helps him a lot because there’s very few good southpaw heavyweights, so oftentimes when he fights someone, he’s the best southpaw fighter that they’ve faced in their career.

In a recent press conference, Wladimir, looking very bored, said “I don’t want to underestimate Ibragimov but I also have no inclination to overestimate him (either),” Klitschko said. In other words, Wladimir’s not really impressed with Ibragimov, certainly not compared to Wladimir’s recent bouts against Lamon Brewster and Calvin Brock, in which he looked somewhat uneasy in the press conferences.