Wladimir Klitschko: Leapai only throws haymakers and has just one gear

By Boxing News - 04/26/2014 - Comments

wladimir555(Photo credit: Michael Sterling Eaton / KMG; www.michaelsterlingeaton.com) By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimr Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) isn’t too worried about his WBO selected opponent Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) for their fight tonight at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Wladimir realizes what he has in front of him – a short, slow fighter with big power but limited skills and talent. This is one of the more basic opponents that the 6’6” Wladimir has had recently, and as long as he doesn’t get hit on the chin by him, Wladimir should be fine.

“Leapai has only one gear and that’s throwing haymakers,” Klitschko said. “He has no clue about strategy or anything in the way of technique and tactics. It’s simple. One gear — move forward and swing and hope to land the right punch.”

It’s very true what Wladimir says. If you watch how easily journeyman Kevin Johnson dominated the slow moving Leapai in his 9th round TKO win over him in 2012, it’s pretty obvious that Leapai has little variation to his offense and his fighting style. He’s throwing shots with everything he has and then he’s falling off balance after throwing.

The thing is, if Leapai gets off balance against Wladimir tonight, he’s very likely going to get speared with something really big to the head. And while Leapai is a very powerful puncher, his ability to take punches in return is badly lacking. In other words, Leapai can dish it out but he can’t take it very well in return.

“He’s very strong. He has big guns and he throws them in different angles,” Wladimir said. “He doesn’t have great balance. Every fight I saw, he was on the floor because he swings so hard that he was losing balance because he put everything on every punch…He’s a true Australian ‘Rocky.’”
Leapai, like a lot of fighters Wladimir faces, has a puncher’s chance of beating the big Ukrainian fighter, but that’s about it. Either Leapai gets to Wladimir with one of his big haymakers or he’s going to be left in a pile of rubble on the canvas tonight.

The Wladimir-Leapai fight will be televised on ESPN tonight at 5 pm, and this will give a lot of Americans a chance to see this fight. It should be interesting while it lasts. My prediction is Wladimir by 4th round TKO. Leapai is too slow, too limited, and too easy to hit to make this a competitive match-up. It’s a shame that the WBO doesn’t pick more talented fighters to fight in their heavyweight eliminators because it was pretty ridiculous for them to select Leapai and Denis Boytsov to fight in the eliminator instead of someone like Deontay Wilder or perhaps Chris Arreola.



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