By William Mackay: I personally feel that a fighter clinching more than 10 times per round as clinching in excess to the point where it’s dulling the fight and getting in the way of action. In last Saturday’s fight between IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and Jean-Marc Mormeck, Wladimir clinches a whopping 15 times in the 1st round alone. That’s an astronomical number to be sure, but that wasn’t the only round in which Wladimir initiated a huge amount of clinches.

In round 2, Wladimir clinches 11 times. That was a slight drop off from the first round, but I think Wladimir’s knockdown of Mormeck was what caused there to be a slight drop off in clinches. Wladimir was able to knock Mormeck down with a right hand, and after he got up Wladimir poured it on briefly in trying to stop him. In the 3rd round, Wladimir’s clinches short back up to 15, and the referee was Luis Pabon was giving Wladimir a lot of dirty looks, appearing unhappy with all the clinching that Wladimir kept doing each time Mormeck would get close to try and throw some shots. Near the end of the round, Wladimir crashed into Mormeck awkwardly while trying to initiate a clinch. This resulted in a tired and hurt Mormeck falling down with Wladimir landing directly on top of him. The referee literally had to pull Mormeck to his his feet as he appeared shaken by the tackle from Wladimir.

In the 4th round, the clinches dropped down to only four. However, that obviously was because Wladimir KO’d Mormeck with a left-right-left combination that put the 39-year-old Mormeck down on his side. To his credit, he did make it back to his feet, but the referee stopped it anyway rather than allow the mismatch to continue.

I’m kind of disappointed with the referee not taking off at least one point for clinching from Wladimir because clinching 15, 11 and 15 times in three rounds is a heck of a lot.