Leapai: Wladimir will fight to survive once I hit him

By Boxing News - 03/24/2014 - Comments

leapai899By Dan Ambrose: #1 WBO, Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) says he doesn’t see how IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) will be able to beat him in their fight in less than 5 weeks from now on April 26th at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Leapai, 34, sees himself hitting the 6’6” Wladimir hard early in the fight, and that in turn will cause Wladimir to play it safe for the remainder of the bout to keep from getting knocked out. Leapai thinks his power will cause Wladimir to fight defensively to the point where he won’t be able to win the fight.

“There’s no doubt in my mind. I just can’t see this guy [Klitschko] beating me,” Leapai said to Radioaustralia. “People say he’s got a good jab, yeah, but he hasn’t felt anything like what I got. I honestly feels my power his game plan is going to go out the window. He’s going to fight to survive. Australia’s going to make history; the whole world’s going to be shocked.”

Leapai went onto say that Wladimir’s management had assumed that Leapai would lost to the previously unbeaten Denis Boytsov, who Leapai beat in the WBO heavyweight title eliminator bout by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision last November to become Wladimir’s mandatory challenger. Lepai said that Wladimir’s management was already in the process of starting negotiations for a fight between Wladimir and Boytsov due to them being so certain that Boytsov would beat Leapai. Boytsov used the wrong fight strategy against Leapai by mixing it up with him at close quarters instead of boxing him, and it cost Boytsov the fight with him getting knocked down twice and taking a lot of punishment.

Leapai can knock Wladimir out with no problems if the big Ukrainian fighter stands in front of him in this fight. Wladimir obviously don’t use that kind of approach to this fight, because he already learned his lesson in his losses to Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster. Wladimir will use movement and a lot of clinching and leaning in every round to get the win. It’s possible that Wladimir will get a stoppage if he can catch a tired Leapai with a big left hook or right hand from the outside late in the fight. But that won’t happen until Wladimir has worn Leapai down with constant holding. The fight might be different if a referee keeps Wladimir from holding by taking multiple points away from him, but it’s not likely to happen. Wladimir will clinch as much as he wants in this fight, and Leapai won’t get much of a chance to land his shots before getting grabbed and leaned on.

Wladimir’s last fight against former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin was one of his worst of his career. Wladimir was grabbing Povetkin at every opportunity to keep him from throwing punches, and even the Russian crowd in their Moscow venue were booing Wladimir. The referee working the fight eventually took a point away from Wladimir for him pushing Povetkin to the canvas, but he didn’t do anything about all the holding that Wladimir got away with. Pabon could have easily taken away another 3-4 points for the holding, and another point for Wladimir pushing Povetkin to the canvas.



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