By Scott Gilfoid: Britain’s Lennox Lewis believes that IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) needs to beat Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) this Saturday night by bombing out the unbeaten 6’9″ fighter with a big right hand, and then go after the WBC title, which is currently held by Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs).
Lewis says Wladimir needs to try and win the WBC belt and then retire from the sport before age and injuries catches up to him. To be sure, Wladimir has recently started showing his age in his last two fights against Bryant Jennings and Kubrat Pulev.
Wladimir looked old in both fights, and his timing and accuracy were not there. However, his punching power, jab and mobility carried him through both fights in enabling him to dominate those two limited heavyweights.
“No matter what Wladimir has to arrange, he still has to get this one [WBC] belt,” Lewis said via Die Welt. “If he does, he should say goodbye to boxing. It would be the perfect end to a glittering career.”
Well, I do agree that Wladimir should think seriously about retiring from the sport, but I think he should do it after the Fury fight on Saturday night rather than after a fight against the hard hitting Deontay. I think a fight against a guy like Deontay is a step too far for Wladimir at this point in his career.
Wilder is too fast in terms of hand speed, and he hits too hard for Wladimir. In a contest between these two giant heavyweights, you have to assume that Wilder will be the first to land one of his huge bombs, and I don’t see Wladimir being able to take the shot.
Wilder is just too quick, too powerful and too talented for the aging 40ish Wladimir to deal with. We already saw that Wladimir’s accuracy with his punches are just gone in his last fight against Jennings. If you put Wladimir in with a big heavyweight with the one-punch power that Wilder possesses, I think it would end badly for the Ukrainian heavyweight.
“He will reach the point where he can no longer punish himself in training like a 20 or 30-year-old,” Lewis said. “You reach the stage when you can’t just jump out bed and flog yourself. Also the risk of injury increases. The biological clock is ticking and it happens to be the toughest rival.”
It’s more than just Wladimir not being able to train like he used to. I think it’s more of a case of Wladimir’s timing, reflexes, accuracy and work rate having gone south on him lately. Without those things, Wladimir will be at the mercy of Wilder when/if they face each other.
Wilder has a voluntary defense he’ll be taking in January next year against likely #3 WBC Vyacheslav Glazkov. After that fight is over with, Wilder has his WBC mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin to get out of the way before he can take on Wladimir in a unification fight.
Povetkin, 36, is an aging short heavyweight, who lacks the size and youth to defeat a big heavyweight like Wilder. We already saw Povetkin get easily handled by Wladimir a couple of years ago. I see Wilder making easy work of Povetkin when they face each other next year.
“He [Klitschko] must have patience [against Fury],” said Lewis. “At some point, the moment will arise where you can use the big right.”
Wladimir doesn’t need patience against Fury. Lewis is dead wrong. Wladimir just needs to wait a short while before Fury bum rushes him with his sloppy fighting style. Once that happens, Wladimir can brain Fury with a big left hook or right hand to send him down face first on the canvas for a knockout.
If Fury staggers back to his feet, then look for Wladimir to finish him off with a single left hook to the head for the knockout. I don’t think Wladimir will have any problems scoring a one-punch knockout in this fight after Fury gets back to his feet, because he’ll be too punch drunk to present any kind of a moving target for Wladimir. In other words, Fury’s head will be on a tee for Wladimir to drive for 400 yards. It’ll be too easy for Wladimir once Fury is badly hurt and unable to defend himself.
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