Valuev Dominates Lyakhovich

By David Lahr: Former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev (48-1, 34 KOs) had little problem beating former WBO heavyweight champion Sergei Lyakhovich (23-3, 14 KOs) tonight, beating him by a remarkably easy 12-round unanimous decision at the Nuernberg Arena, in Nuremberg, Bayern, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108 and 120-107, giving Valuev, 34, another possible shot at Ruslan Chagaev, the WBA heavyweight champion, who defeated Valuev by a controversial majority decision in April 2007, to take his title away.

Lyakhovich, 31, was never able to get into the bout, lacking both size, reach and aggression. Valuev was able to keep the shorter Lyakhovich at a distance for most of the fight, as Valuev’s long reach and telephone pole jab made it extrememly hard for Lyakhovich to get into punching distance. However, Lyakhovich did himself no favors, for he seemed to be trying to take a page out of Carlos Quintana’s, the new WBO welterweight champion who recently defeated Paul Williams, by using a lot of side to side movement in which Lyahovich hoped to keep Valuev from having an easy stationary target. However, it failed to work for Lyakhovich, because when he would attempt to come in punching range to land a couple of shots, Valuev’s jab would be there waiting for him.

In the first two rounds of the fight, Lyakhovich was wary of Valuev, as he stayed mostly on the outside, rarely trying to get in punching range. Valuev, as usual, plodded slowly after Lyakhovich, trying to corner him so that he could line him up for a big right hand. Valuev mostly landed jabs during these two rounds, because of Lyakhovich’s constant movement, which prevented Valuev from having the kind of stationary target that he needs to land his right hand.

Lyakhovich came back in the fourth round, landing jabs and a hard left hook that connected to the head of Valuev, but did little in the way of hurting him. It was Lyakhovich at his best, for he looked like his old form of his bout with Lamon Brewster two years ago.

Unfortunately for Lyakhovich, this was his last impressive round, as he appeared to lose the remaining rounds of the fight by a wide margin. It wasn’t as if he didn’t try, but he was just too small, and didn’t have enough power or speed with which to bother the giant Valuev. From rounds six through twelve, Valuev won round after round, mostly using his jab, mixed in with an occasional right hand.