By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) says he was surprised at how old IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) looked recently in him having to struggle to defeat the light hitting American Bryant Jennings (19-1, 10 KOs) last month in their fight on April 25th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Wladimir won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but he definitely looked old and fought like an older guy that couldn’t pull the trigger on his shots anymore.
About the only thing that Wladimir could do well was move around the ring. His timing looked shot on his power shots, and he couldn’t generate much speed on punches or his jab.
Wilder says that he’ll be facing Wladimir in 2016, but he thinks that the Ukrainian fighter needs to get the fight over sooner rather than later due to how bad he’s starting to look now that he’s getting up there in age at 39-years-old. Wilder is now starting to have doubts whether Wladimir will be able to get through his mandatory fights first. He’s got one coming up next against his WBO mandatory Tyson Fury, and there’s no guarantee that Wladimir will be able to win that fight.
“We definitely saw that Klitschko is getting old, man,” Wilder said via SBNation. “He’s losing touch a little bit. As far as a fight against me, we’ll have it in 2016. He should do this fight sooner than later because he’s getting old. He’s got to get through his mandatories first too first, because the way he looked, he looked old in that fight,” Wilder said.
I have to agree with Deontay. Wladimir did look old, and I’m not talking about he looked. I’m talking about how he fought. Wladimir didn’t have the same hand speed that he had years ago, and he’s not letting his hands go like he did before. I first noticed that Wladimir looked like he’d lost his timing in his fight against Kubrat Pulev last November.
Wladimir had problems connecting with his right hands and his jabs. He just looked like a guy that was starting to unravel as a fighter. Luckily for him, Pulev kept walking forward with his hands down by his waist instead of protecting his chin. This enabled Wladimir to connect with big left hooks to the head that ultimately knocked Pulev out.
With the way that Wladimir looked against Jennings, I don’t see Wladimir getting past Fury and Deontay. I mean, the only way I can see Wladimir beating Fury is if he connects with a left hook and drops him. Wladimir’s right hand is no longer a weapon in my view, and he doesn’t throw his jab enough to do damage like he used to years ago. If somehow Wladimir does get past Fury, I definitely don’t think he’ll beat Wilder. He’s too fast, too young and too powerful for Wladimir at this point in his career.
“I want to be the undisputed champion of the word,” Wilder said. “We know that Klitschko has the remaining belts and I’m looking forward to taking them away from him and bringing the belts back to America.”
I’d really hate to see Wladimir lose his title against Wilder by getting knocked out, but that’s what I see happening if Wladimir sticks around and takes the fight with him. I hate to say it but I think that Wladimir needs to take a good look at how he performed against Jennings and use it as a clue to see that doesn’t appear to have it anymore. If he gets in there with the 6’7″ Deontay, I can see Wladimir getting poleaxed by Deontay.
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