Vitali Wants Bout With Valuev – News
March 23rd, 2009
By Jason Kim: WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KOs) wants a shot at WBA heavyweight title holder Nikolay Valuev now. Klitschko, 37, stopped challenger Juan Carlos Gomez (44-2, 35 KOs) in the 9th round on Saturday night in Stuttgart, Germany. Vitali looked sluggish, missing shots, gasping for breath and struggling with the awkward style of Gomez until finally solving it in the 7th round when Vitali was able to temporarily put him down with a hard right hand to the head.
After the fight, an exhausted Vitali, who an hour later could still barely catch his breath, spoke of wanting to fight the 7-foot Valuev, a fighter who is considered to be the weakest of the current heavyweight champions in boxing.
It’s hard not to see why Vitali wants to fight the big Russian bear, because casual boxing fans are interested in seeing Valuev fight no matter who it’s against. In a matchup between the 6’8” Vitali and the 7’ foot Valuev, it’s a fight that would almost surely bring in a lot of fans, make a lot of money and give the heavyweight division a badly needed mini-mega fight.
The bout would be huge especially in Europe, where Valuev is more well known. In the U.S, it likely wouldn’t be nearly as big a fight but would still bring in a lot of fans who would be interested in seeing two of the biggest heavyweights in the division going head to head.
There’s one problem, however. The WBC wants Vitali to fight Oleg Maskaev, whom they have designated as Vitali’s new number #1 mandatory challenger, and who Vitali must fight next or risk getting stripped of his WBC heavyweight title.
Although Vitali has appealed to an outside mediator to try and not to have to fight Maskaev, the chances are he’s going to have to fight Oleg or else lose his heavyweight title.
Vitali’s goal is to win a second title to go along with his WBC belt, making him and his brother Wladimir Klitschko as champions who hold two belts a piece. Wladimir currently is the IBF and WBO heavyweight champion.
Whether Vitali gets his fight against Valuev or not, there’s no question that Vitali and Wladimir are the two best heavyweights in the division at this point in time. Some boxing fans – a small minority – feel that British heavyweight David Haye might actually be the best heavyweight in the division.
After seeing Vitali’s poor performance against Gomez on Saturday night, it’s hard not to agree with them about Haye.
It seems as if Vitali is trying to get the boxing public really excited about him fighting Maskaev, so much so that they could assist in putting pressure on the WBC for him to fight Maskaev. I doubt that will happen, however. Sure, the public wouldn’t mind seeing a Valuev vs. Vitali fight on the horizon, but probably not enough to get the WBC to change their mind about Vitali fighting Maskaev.
Valuev has never been a popular champion from the beginning and with his loss to Ruslan Chagaev in 2007, along with Valuev’s controversial 12-rouund decision over 46-year-old Holyfield last year, he’s lost a lot of credibility with fans. It seems as if Vitali is a couple years late in wanting a big fight with Valuev.
It would be big in some ways, but not the kind of fight that it would have been if Vitali had come out of retirement two years ago and fought Valuev. Big Nikolay has slowed down dramatically in the past couple of years, and is even slower and more ponderous now than he ever was before.
At the end of the day, Vitali might be better off looking at things in a realistic way instead of dreaming about fights that will never be, like, for instance, his dream of wanting to fight a rematch with Lennox Lewis.
Tags: 13 Responses to “Vitali Wants Bout With Valuev – News”
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Sorry I got that wrong Boxrec figures, WBC put it at 97.2% it just gets better.
Your right of cause this could go on and on so I will leave this one with just facts and nothing else. Vitali Klitschko 92.31% KO rate the best in HW history. Lewis 72.73%.
you can go on and on and on and on. yes – they are dominant…. but boring. who’s fault is it? i don’t give a rat’s ass. viatli’s style is a big part of the problem. this style is definitely serving him in terms of winning without taking very little risks. secondly some of the folks going about his power are plain wrong. he’s physically strong, and has a decent punch, but not one punch ko power “a chap called” lennox lewis used to have. that’s why it’s so painful to watch it. like a bad dream for me. i have a very strong feeling that back in a day, lewis would simply damage gomez in 1-2 rounds, as he used to do with most of the contenders. some of his fights were boring, in some he was simply losing (mercer) – as he’d a problems with motivation sometimes. but again -he used to finish off most of his opponents in 1-2 rounds (Botha, Grant, Golota ). and vitali is completely different. he’s who he is – and he’ll fight like this…. and people won’t like it. he’s not one punch ko guy, he needs to wear them down, and beat them slowlly and methodically into submission. and it is not exciting, and it’s boring for someone who’s not his dedicated fan… and the fight with lewis was interesting, because lewis was fighting back. i was not a huge lewis fan, and didn’t like him in this fight as he was too fat and slow, and punching with single shots. this fight was much less exciting then ie holyfield one, but notable because of vialis face being ripped open.
of course a rematch would be nice – but lewis had no motivation anymore. everytime he was over 250, there was going to be a problem, and this night he was the heaviest in his career.
and comming back to excitiment – there is a need of someone who will just go at him and stand his ground. Loose or win – this is what it takes. and i believe once vitali is made to FIGHT, and dig deep, then we’ll have some excitment out of it. for now of course he’s the man to beat, but fighting maskaev/valuev/chagaev will produce another boring clinchfests. he’ll beat them all into submission but it won’t add nothing to his legacy, but another meaningless belt.
I seem to remember a fight between Vitali and a chap called Lennox Lewis, I seem to remember it was very exciting and had people standing up and shouting and I might add asking for a rematch. Now why was that exciting,because two great boxers were in the ring together, one being Vitali. So if Vitali can put on a show like that what’s the problem now? Oh yes the opponents. Not then Vitali’s fault, so why keep slagging Vitali off when it should be the other side that gets it, same for Wladimir. And for goodness sake most of then get KO so what’s boring about that?
And for all those that believe that Haye will be the saviour get ready for a disappointment. He just doesn’t have what it takes to beat these two. The guy that just left by TKO had everything Haye has and some. OH yes I know Haye can Bang but you have to get through the armour first, and he ain’t got what it takes. see you all in June.
Yes the Klitschkos are boring, but until somebody good enough appears to beat them, they will be dominant in the division. At 37, Vitali needs the fight with Valuev soon to fulfill the Klitschko dream, i honestly dont think he has many years left in him now, maybe he was just having an off night but for a guy as clinical as he is, i dont see that being the case. Retirement is calling the Dr.
He should take the fight with Oleg, its a no brainer on betting terms, Vitali will ruin him. Valuev has to fight Chagaev anyway to put to bed the “Champion in Recess” standing anyway (Its a matter of pride for Valuev), and lets face it, Vitali could do with the warm up to get his fight fitness up.
Haye isnt the guy to knock the brothers off their mantel, to be honest, i dont know who is!!! Wlad is the weaker of the two by a longshot and any fighter with a big punch could probably shock him, if not floor him, but Vits a machine, his record speaks for itself.
Vitali did what he had to do to finish off the pretender and ungainly mandatory Gomez. For those that have eyes to see Vitali displayed the good fight rendering an awkward uncomfortable opponent into a ruined heap of trembling sad sack much the same as Vitali always has done with opponents in the past. It could be said that the Ukrainian boxer was a bit breathless but that was not a deadly sin and besides Vitali had the other guy under control from early in the fight handily moving around the ring placing his shots more or less at will. Vitali will be around to dismay the anti-Klitschko crowd for some time yet so gentlemen get used to it you are living in the Klitschko heavyweight era. A good time to be alive!
not very exciting at all, i hope someone like haye can knock them all out.
probably he is:) just get on youtube and look how fight used to look like in the old days – there is probably more action in one fight of Holyfield then in whole Klitschko career. no one is sayin that it wasn’t a domination, because i’m the first to admit it. what i’m saying is that it’s boring. But at the same time I understand that some people like to watch boring stuff – if i.e. they’re in friendship/love with the participant, or for some other reasons. me – for example – like to watch cycling, like giro d’italia or tour de france, and i’m not bored with this stuff, but overall, cycling is damn boring. for someone grown up on watching good excting fights in 80s and 90s, this is utter garbage. but at the same time someone might like it. it’s something so boring that they won’t put it on pay per view, cos the number would be disastrous – no one exept of his very dedicated fan base want’s to watch it – like with J. Ruiz. Did you ever thought about putting cycling on ppv?
Klitschko is definitely dominant but not watchable, at least for major public – they don’t give a damn about his fights. In place I was from 150 people watching, 50% stopped watching after the 4th round, and all of them were booing, and saying “what the f**ck is it?” it was like I heard no one say it was exciting in any moment. Then if you’d compare it to Holyfield vs Lewis, or Golota vs Bowe, in the exactly same place…. man – everyone on their feet, screaming and yelling, the action going back and forth, with both man exchanging etc. This is my boxing. maybe your’s is clinching, swinging and mouling,
Adam are you sleeping with the Klitschko’s???
johno
gomez couldn’t touch vitali. literally. it was a mismatch. both klitschko brothers are so imposing physically it’s going to take a rare combination to beat them: a fighter with the size, boxing skill and heart to stand in there. gomez was 0/3 in those departments.
vitali reminds me of an old-fashioned bare-knuckle fighter from a bygone era. and i mean that as compliment. he’s so upright at times -like a guy you see fighting on a b/w reel from the 20s -but it works. i’m not sure gomez hit him flush once.
for a guy who has only fought a couple times in 4 years, vitali looked o.k. gomez wasn’t much.
a fight with valuev is novelty. that guy’s terrible.
not much at heavyweight these days. still, both k brothers look unbeatable to me right now. too bad they won’t fight each other. that’s the fight.
I enjoyed the match.It wasn’t something great,but it was domination.I have no problems woth a good old fashioned ass-whoopin.
yep – do this fight, but put armchairs, or bads for people to take a nap. and some video games to do something during this fantastic match
Does anybody know why Vitali looked so tired during the fight? Did he throw too many punches or something?