Wladimir Klitschko wants to fight three times in 2010 – News

By Boxing News - 01/11/2010 - Comments

Image: Wladimir Klitschko wants to fight three times in 2010 - NewsBy Jim Dower: International Boxing Federation/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (53-3, 47 KO’s) is hoping to fight at least three times in 2010. Klitschko, 33, has a title defense coming up against American Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KO’s) on March 20th, at the ESPRIT arena, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. In an article at the Miami Herald, Klitschko says “You could say I am very anxious to get back in the ring. I definitely want three fights this year after what I went through last year.”

Klitschko is referring to his missed fight against British heavyweight David Haye, who Wladimir wasted months in training and negotiations for a June 20th bout. However, several weeks before the fight, Haye suddenly experienced a back injury that caused the fight to be called off. Instead of waiting for Haye’s back ailment to heal up, Klitschko chose to fight Ruslan Chagaev. However, the time spent in trying to arrange the fight with Haye, and an injury that Wladimir sustained in the Chagaev bout, caused Wladimir to miss out on another fight.

“Last year, Vitali [Klitschko, the older brother of Wladimir] was busier than me, so now I have to catch him. I am feeling great and have no ill effects from my injury.” Vitali Klitschko, the WBC heavyweight champion, fought three times in 2009, beating Juan Carlos Gomez, Chris Arreola and Kevin Johnson. Wladimir Klitschko hasn’t fought since his 9th round stoppage win over Chagaev in June.

Wladimir is hoping to attract a huge crowd of 55,000 boxing fans for his fight with Chambers in Dusseldorf. Klitschko’s last fight against Chagaev drew 61,000 fans in Germany. These are numbers that Klitschko, and his brother Vitali, could only dream about getting in the United States. In the U.S., the Klitschko brothers are much less popular, even though both of them have been dominating the heavyweight division off and on since 2003.

The problem with the Klitschko is that they don’t press hard to score knockouts in the early going of their fights, and instead prefer to wear down their opponents with an accumulation of blows. Still, that hasn’t stopped each of them from scoring mostly knockouts in their fights. It’s just not as interesting for some boxing fans because the Klitschko brothers typically bludgeon their opponents into submission rather than trying to take their heads off with every punch like more exciting heavyweights like Mike Tyson.

Wladimir could fight in the U.S. this year, possibly fighting twice in the United States if he can get one of the major broadcasters, like HBO, to show his fights. There is talk already that HBO won’t be showing the Klitschko-Chambers fight in March. Lets’ hope that HBO does end up showing the Klitschko-Chambers fight, because this is bout that many Americans would be interested in seeing it.

Chambers, a former sparring partner for Klitschko, is coming off an impressive 12 round majority decision over 6’7” Alexander Dimitrenko last July. Chambers did well against Dimitrenko, who has a fighting style very similar to Klitschko.



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