By Allan Fox: IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (56-3, 49 KO’s) has put himself in a situation by facing the badly overmatched 39-year-old Jean Marc Mormeck (36-4, 22 KO’s) tonight to where Wladimir not only needs to beat him, but has to beat him badly or else boxing fans will heap tons of criticism on Wladimir. I’m sure he likely doesn’t care, as he’ll do well regardless in terms of making a lot of money for the fight.

There’s expected to be 50,000 fans in attendance tonight at the fight in ESPRIT arena, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The fight will also be televised on RTL in Germany, and also televised back in France where Mormeck lives. He’s going to make money, but Wladimir may turn off a lot of boxing fans if he’s unable to make easy work of the 39-year-old Mormeck. WHen you pick out a fringe contender like Mormeck, you have to not only beat him but really give him a bad thrashing in order to avoid getting hit hard from the boxing public in the way of being criticized. In hindsight, Wladimir should have opted for a fight against someone like Cris Arreola, Denis Boytsov, Alexander Dimitrenko or Kubrat Pulev in order to avoid being in a no-win situation. Wladimir said that most of the top 15 heavyweights turned down his invitation to fight him. However, it’s hard to imagine that ALL of them turned him down. I can’t see Arreola saying no to a fight nor I think Pulev or Dimitrenko would say no a big money fight. Why would they say no to a once in lifetime chance at a big fight against one of the Klitschko brothers?

If I was Wladimir’s trainer, I would recommend he try and put the 39-year-old Mormeck out of his misery as soon as possible and not let the fight drag on into the later rounds. The longer the fight goes, the more of a chance that Mormeck will have to land one of his big bombs on the sometimes fragile chin of Wladimir to take him out.