By Scott Gilfoid: After four years out of the ring and without one tune-up, former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 34 KOs) is going to be making what appears to be a hasty decision to make a comeback against WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) on October 11th, at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany. I could somehow understand Vitali’s desire to make a comeback if he had at least fought two or three opponents previous to his upcoming bout with Peter and proved that he can still fight, or even that he can make it into the ring without injuring.

However, give the absence of any fights in recent years, I can’t help but to think that Vitali is going to take a serious beating at the hands of Peter. In his prime, I would have picked Vitali to soundly defeat for the simple reason because he has the much better boxing skills, much bigger size and reach, equally good power and an excellent chin to go with all those assets. But, when you’re talking about a 37 year-old fighter with a history of serious injuries, some of which have caused him to cancel all of his latest attempts at making into the ring, it seems to be a bad omen for Vitali.

I’m not precisely sure why he’s decided to make a comeback after all these years. Who knows? Maybe he needs the money or could have been looking at old tapes of himself and suddenly got the inspiration to pick up the gloves again, and give it a try. However, when a fighter has been off as many years as Vitali has, most of the time they’re not going to be even close to what they were in the past.

It’s like a racehorse that has sustained a serious injury to one of its legs. The horse may think it can still get out there and run with the other horse, because after all that’s all it’s ever done, but once you put it out there with the other horses, it’s left behind in a cloud of dust. I think the same thing is going to happen to Vitali. In his case, he’s not only affected by the numerous injuries to his knee and back, but he’s also nearing 40 and obviously will be slower than he was before.

Never particularly quick even in his prime, my guess is Vitali will look dramatically slower than he was the last time we saw him fight, which was against Danny Williams in December 2004. On that night, Vitali looked as he was on the downside of his career, appearing slow and exhausted, and looking like a fighter with not much time left on the boxing clock. Now four years later, one can only imagine how much worse Vitali is going to be.

He’ll probably be about as slow as Andrew Golota has looked as of late. For those who haven’t seen any of his recent fights, I’d suggest you take a look at them because he looks as if he’s punching in slow motion, and looks horrible. If Vitali is slower than he was before, even if he does make it into the ring, I think Peter is going to give him the beating of Vitali’s life. Without the ability to move around the ring to try and escape Peter’s big shots, sort of like how Wladimir was able to avoid being knocked out by Peter, Vitali will be forced to stand directly in front of Peter for the entire fight, trading shots.

That won’t work, because Vitali will either tire out quickly or run into a big shot and get taken out. Like I said, I’m not sure why Vitali has decided on making a comeback after all these years, but it it’s not because of the need for money, then he needs to reconsider and stay in the safety of his retirement. He needs to let his brother Wladimir take on the dangerous Peter. Wladimir did an okay job last time out, and if his chin can hold out in a second fight, he’ll probably handily beat Peter a second time as well.

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