Wladimir Klitschko = A Weaker Version of Lennox Lewis?

By Jim Dower: While I was watching a couple old fights this week of Lennox Lewis (41-2-1, 32 KOs), I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of his style and that of the current IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (50-3, 44 KOs), both of whom have the same trainer Emanuel Steward. Like Lewis, Klitschko has an excellent jab, maybe the best in all of boxing when he remembers to throw it, is about as equally as tall as Lewis at 6′6″, has a weak chin, and often is lacking in aggression when going after his opponents. In a way, Klitschko is almost an exact copy of Lewis, although not quite as good as him in any one category other than hand speed, which is the one area that Wladimir Klitschko is clearly superior to Lewis in.

Both Lewis and Klitschko have an excellent right hand, and are capable (in the case of Lewis, he used to be capable of scoring knockouts but sadly is now long retired from boxing) of scoring one-punching knockouts. Lewis’ right hand was definitely a little better than Klitschko’s, and he also was much more confident about throwing it than Klitschko, as well. Although there were some fights, in particular against David Tua and the first fight against Hasim Rahman, where Lewis was clearly timid about letting his right hand go and fought pretty much a safety first fight.

Following that fight, Steward set out to slowing down the pace of Wladimir, making him more economical with his punches, having him use his jab much more often and getting him to clinch frequently, much like the same way Lewis used to do. Since that time, Wladimir has thoroughly learned Steward’s style (the Lewis style) of fighting, so much so that it’s hard to remember how Klitschko used to fight before signing Steward on as a trainer.

However, there’s one area that Steward has been much less successful in changing Klitschko’s to be more like Lewis, and that’s in the way that Wladimir deals with pressure. Unlike Lewis, who would be calm, thinking strategy, and getting his competitive fire lit when attacked, Klitschko seems to fall to pieces, looking stressed out and not reacting well to being pressured. It’s almost like he’s not used to it, perhaps because of the large amount of easy foes he fought in the front half of his career while he was building his impressive knockout string of victories. Whether it is that, or something ingrained in him that can’t be changed, it seems that Klitschko to this day, still doesn’t handle pressure very well and tends to panic.

So far, other than the fight with Brewster which Klitschko lost, Steward has been able to get Klitschko to calm down in between rounds. A prime example was in Klitschko’s exciting fight with Samuel Peter in 2005, where Peter knocked Wladimir down three times in the fight, and had him confused looking and scared in between rounds at times. Steward, however, had a great calming effect on Wladimir and gave him a huge burst of confidence each time. It’s regrettable that Wladimir can’t fight that way all the time, that he needs Steward to give him pep talks when he comes apart, but it’s something that will likely not go away in the future.

With that one problem, I’d have say that Klitshko is much less a fighter than Lewis is, because regardless of how close their physical boxing skills are, Lewis was much better at keeping it together when attacked. As far as stamina goes, that’s also an area where Lewis would have to be rated as the better fighter. He would tend to slow down a little in some of his fights, but not nearly enough for it to be a problem for him. In fact, I can’t recall one fight, other than perhaps his last fight against Vitali Klitschko in June 2003, that Lewis tired out and where his stamina was a problem for him.

In that fight, however, Lewis has a huge excuse because he had trained for a fight with Kirk Johnson (and appeared not to train as hard) and not for a fight against the rugged 6’8” older Klitschko brother. Even then, Lewis was hurting Vitali in the last two rounds and appeared to have him ready to go in the 6th round of the fight. The fight was stopped after the sixth round due to the severe cuts that Vitali had sustained in the bout, courtesy of Lewis’ powerful right hands.

I can’t see Lewis losing to fighters like Puritty, Sanders or Brewster, all of which I believe Lewis would stop without much problems. As far as records go, Lewis appeared to fight the much tougher opponents over the course of his career and never attempted to dodge anyone, the way that Klitschko appears to be doing by side-stepping around both Alexander Povetkin, his IBF mandatory, and David Haye, an exciting fighter that has been calling Klitschko out constantly for the past two months without success. Lewis would have taken both of them on without hesitation and knocked both out within six rounds or so.