Wladimir on the verge of passing Holmes for 2nd place in longest title reigns

By Boxing News - 07/04/2013 - Comments

wlad34By Allan Fox: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KO’s) will be passing former heavyweight world champion Larry Holmes next month as the heavyweight champion with the 2nd longest world title reign. Holmes is in 2nd place with having previously held a world title for 7 years and three months, according to Dan Rafael.

Wladimir will be toping that next month once he goes past 7 years, three months and 12 days. Wladimir has held his IBF title since beating Chris Byrd by a 7th round TKO on April 22nd in 2006, and he’s successfully defended the belt 14 times. Even with Wladimir moving into 2nd place next month in the longest title reign department, he’ll still trail Holmes in the overall title defense department.

Holmes had 20 title defenses while a world champion, and Joe Louis had 25 title defenses. Louis has the heavyweight record for the most title defenses and with the longest reign as world champion, 11 year and 8 months.

For Wladimir to surpass Louis’ record for the longest title reign, Wladimir would have to fight past his 41st birthday and hope that he can continue to beat the top heavyweights in those 4 tears that he still has in front of him. Can Wladimir do this? It’s possible but not likely.

He doesn’t have his brother Vitali Klitschko’s strong chin, and sooner or later he’s going to face a heavyweight with big power that can catch him with a hard shot that will put him down for the count.

Wladimir was briefly shook up by Mariusz Wach last year in November at one point in the fight, and it looked for a brief moment that he could be in trouble.

Wladimir was able to survive the round and dominate Wach for the remainder of the fight. But there are much better heavyweights in the division than Wach, and it’s going to be tough for Wladimir to break Louis’ records for the most title defenses and the longest reign as a champion.



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