By Allan Fox: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis thinks that #1 WBO Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) could pull off a big upset by beating IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) in their fight on April 26th at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
“There could be a surprise perhaps,” Lewis said via sport.de. “He is a good challenger.”
Lewis might need to see some more of Leapai’s past fights to see how badly over-matched he is against Wladimir. Leapai is the same guy that Kevin Johnson recently knocked out.
Leapai, 34, has the power to defeat the 6’6” Wladimir, but he doesn’t have the height or the reach. At 6’0” with a reach of 75”, Leapai is going to have a really tough time trying to land his shots unless he can catch Wladimir coming in trying to clinch him. If Wladimir chooses to stay on the outside and jab him, which is likely what he’ll do, Leapai will be helpless for as long as the fight lasts.
What Wladimir usually does against short fighters like Leapai is jab them to the point where they start puffing up, and having problems seeing. Once Wladimir has them slightly punch drunk from his jabs, he then starts dropping in big left hooks and right hands. Those shots are difficult to take when a fighter is already beaten up to a certain extent the way that Leapai will likely be.
The World Boxing Organization made it really easy for Leapai to become Wladimir’s mandatory challenger by matching him against Denis Boytsov instead of one of the more active and relevant heavyweights. Boytosv is a guy that has been hanging around for years, but who never fought anyone remotely good during his career to earn a top 10 ranking. The WBO should have had Leapai face someone like Tyson Fury, Bryant Jennings or Dereck Chisora before having him get
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