Wladimir spars with Vitali to get ready for Fury

By Boxing News - 11/21/2015 - Comments

vitali4353By Scott Gilfoid: In what has to be seen as overkill, IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) used his 6’7” brother former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko for several rounds of sparring to get ready for his title defense next Saturday night against the rangy 6’9” Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) at the ESPRIT Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Vitali, 44, hasn’t fought since 2012, when he successfully defended his WBC heavyweight title by easily beating Manuel Charr in a mismatch. However, Vitali is still likely more than good enough to step inside the ring and beat the likes of Fury on short notice if he were to be the one fighting this Saturday night.

Vitali was on another level, and arguably the far better of the Klitschko brothers. Vitali beat two of the guys that knocked out Wladimir in stopping Corrie Sanders and Ross Puritty in one-sided fights.

Vitali retired as the WBC champion in 2013 and is now the mayor of Kiev in Ukraine. He has no desire to make a comeback, but if he did, he would likely be more than good enough to pick up a major belt.

Wladimir will need to deal with Fury’s cautious fighting style on Saturday night, as well as his awkward angles in throwing his shots. Fury has the look of him as someone who was self-taught in the boxing fans. He does a lot of things wrong, and because of that it’s hard for the better schooled fighters to adjust to the things Fury does. He fights like someone who laced up the gloves for the first time.

Wladimir likely won’t have any problems knocking Fury out on Saturday night. The hardest part for Wladimir will be adjusting to Fury’s long range, and his long reach. Fury is a slapper who likes to fight mostly at medium distance. However, he can fight at a distance when he has to.

I’ve never see Fury fight at a distance for any length of time though, and my guess is it tires him out to have to throw shots with full extension, whether that be his jab or his power shots. Fury has a kind of lazy way of fighting where he likes to get in close so he doesn’t have to use a lot of energy. That obviously isn’t going to work against a talent like Wladimir, because he likes to fight on the outside, where he can use his powerful jab and right hand.

When Wladimir does fight at medium range, he likes to throw his powerful left hook to KO his opponents. If Fury is stupid enough to fight Wladimir at medium range, then it could be a short night for Fury with him getting nailed by one of Wladimir’s big left hooks and either finished off with a right hand or knocked cold with a 2nd left hook. Either way, I see Fury getting knocked cold to where he’s unconscious before he hits the floor.

In Wladimir’s last four fights, he’s beaten Bryant Jennings, Kubrat Pulev, Alex Leapai and Alexander Povetkin. You can make a strong argument that 3 of those fighters would beat Fury if given the chance. For Fury’s part, he’s beaten much lower level opposition in his last four fights in defeating Christian Hammer, Dereck Chisora, Joey Abell and Steve Cunningham.

Much of Fury’s resume is built on lower level opposition with marginal talent. That’s kind of unfortunate because it means that Fury is coming into next Saturday’s fight against Wladimir without the resume of fights that he needs to get him ready for the talent that he’ll be seeing in the ring. When you don’t have the experience to get ready for a fighter like Wladimir, then it tends to end badly for you.



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