Klitschko-Povetkin possible on HBO for October 5th

By Boxing News - 08/01/2013 - Comments

wladimir3323By Allan Fox: The October 5th heavyweight title clash between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KO’s) and WBA champ Alexander Povetkin (26-0, 18 KO’s) could wind up being televised live on HBO in the United States. The fight will be staged at Olimpiyskiy, in Moscow, Russia.

This means the Wladimir vs. Povetkin fight would end up being televised in the afternoon on HBO if it’s truly going to be televised live.

Dan Rafael of EPSN said on his twitter “I’m told HBO Boxing is in process of finalizing deal for US rights for Wladimir Klitschko-Alexander Povetkin on 10/5. Would air fight live.”

I can’t imagine the ratings being too high if they televise it during the day on HBO in the U.S unless HBO markets the fight like crazy, which would seem highly unlikely because Wladimir’s fan base in the U.S very narrow. Povetkin doesn’t have a fan base in America.

EPIX had been showing the recent Klitschko fights on their network, but it doesn’t appear they’re going to continue down that road.
This is actually a good fight; so it makes sense that HBO would televise this fight compared to some of the less than interesting fights they’ve been showing recently.

Povetkin has a sluggers chance to stop Wladimir if he can get inside his long reach and land shots in close. Povetkin has the engine to win this fight if he can handle getting hit by Wladimir’s big right hands and jabs. Wladimir used to have a pretty good left hook, but he stopped using it with any frequency after he was stopped by Corrie Sanders a decade ago.

Povetkin will be the first credible opponent that Wladimir has faced since his win over David Haye in 2011. Since then, Wladimir has kind of been on a holiday away from quality opposition with him facing Francesco Pianeta, Jean Marc Mormeck, Marius Wach and Tony Thompson.

Povetkin hasn’t exactly been facing quality either since 2008 when he fought Eddie Chambers. Povetkin has faced one semi-decent opponent in the last five years and that was cruiserweight Marco Huck last year. It should have been an easy fight, but Povetkin is more of a cruiserweight himself and he had to really struggle to win a 12 round majority decision.

The rest of Povetkin’s opposition in the past five years has been mediocre with him beating the likes of Andrzej Wawrzyk, Hasim Rahman, Cedrick Boswell, Ruslan Chagaev, Nicolai Firtha, Teke Oruth, Javier Mora, Leo Nola, Jason Estrada, and Taurus Sykes. Povetkin has been playing it safe for too long, and his resume is totally padded with the exception of his fights against Chambers, Chris Byrd and Huck.



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