Chambers sees no problems beating Klitschko

By Jim Dower: American heavyweight contender Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KO’s) feels good about his chances of beating IBF/WBC heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (53-3, 47 KO’s) on March 20th when he fights him in Germany. Chambers, 27, says in an article at Boxing Talk “I’m coming to win this fight handily and in twelve rounds. I should be in front pretty easily.” Chambers thinks he’ll be able to out-point Klitschko, which is kind of the opposite of what most fighters attempt to do when they face Wladimir. Winning rounds against the tall 6’6” Klitschko isn’t an easy thing for most fighters do.

Klitschko tends to fight tall, uses his powerful jab well and is hard to hit because he retreats when his opponents come at him. Additionally, Klitschko has two powerful weapons – a left hook and a right hand – that he can drop in on his opponent at any time to score a knockdown or knockout. Trying to out-box Klitschko is almost impossible to do. The closest fighters that came to beating Klitschko on points were Samuel Peter in 2005 and DaVarryl Williamson in 2004.

Both fighters benefited from having knocked Klitschko down in the fight. Peter in fact dropped Klitschko three times in the bout, but unfortunately Peter lost almost every round besides the ones he scored knockdowns in. Chambers will have to drop Klitschko at least two to three times in the fight if he’s to have a chance of out-pointing him.

Other than that, it’s doubtful that Chambers will be able to get past Klitschko’s jabs and right hands. Chambers has to be fast if he even wants to get inside on Klitschko, because he’s going to take a lot of heavy shots on the way in. Wladimir will have watched Chambers’ last fight, a 12 round majority decision win over 6’7” Ukrainian Alexander Dimitrenko, and will be prepared to stop Chambers when he tries to get in punching range to land his fast shots.

Chambers doesn’t have a high work rate in his fights, and instead has relied on landing at a slightly rate than his opponents. He looked too small for his fight against Samuel Peter, and took some big shots from Peter when Samuel was attacking him. However, Peter came into the fight badly overweight at 265, and faded late in the bout because of the excess weight.

Although Chambers got a narrow win, it wasn’t an impressive performance by him. He looked like a cruiserweight facing a heavyweight. Being small has its advantages against some of the bigger heavyweights, but Chambers will be facing a really good big heavyweight in Klitschko. With his big size advantage, Wladimir could end up easily beating Chambers with that alone.

However, when you add to that the fact Wladimir has a lot of hand speed, power in both hands, and athleticism, it looks like it could be a long night of pain for Chambers. And that’s if Chambers can even last into the late rounds of the fight, because there’s a good chance that Klitschko will take him out at some point in the fight. Klitschko has taken out eight of his last ten opponents since 2005. In contrast, Chambers has stopped four out of his last ten opponents while facing much weaker opposition than Wladimir.

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