By Jeff Aranow: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis believes that Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) would have never lost to Tyson Fury if his late trainer Emanuel Steward were still alive and training him. Lewis believes that Wladimir would beat IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) if Steward were still with him. Wladimir will be facing Joshua on April 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
Steward passed away in 2012, and Wladimir has been trained ever since then by Jonathon Banks, a fighter that knows Steward’s training style quite well.
Wladimir appeared not to follow the directions that were given to him by Banks in his loss to Fury in November 2015. Banks was giving Wladimir what appeared to be the correct instructions for the Fury fight, but he wasn’t able to carry out those instructions for some reason.
Whether it was some kind of motivational problem on Wladimir’s part is unclear. He looked afraid to throw punches. What’s hard to believe is how unprepared Wladimir was for the Fury fight. It’s as if he was seeing Fury for the first time, because he had to know that he was going to use movement against him.
Fury didn’t do anything out of the ordinary for his way of fighting. Fury was moving and doing a lot of leaning backwards on the ropes to cause Wladimir to miss with his punches. The smart thing for Wladimir to do would have been to throw to the body, because Fury’s midsection was right there for him to hit him, but he wouldn’t do it.
“If Manny was still here, Klitschko would still be the champion, and he would be a better fighter,” Lewis said to PA Sport. “I would have made him the favorite to beat Joshua if Manny Steward was here. It’s a big loss, because he needed Emanuel, and it’s really hard to replace Emanuel. In essence he’s training himself, and he can’t train himself because Manny set out a number of different things you could do in different situations. I know them all. I know he has that experience level.”
Steward would have motivated Wladimir to fight as well as he could. It still would be a very difficult fight for Wladimir against Joshua, because he would need to take some shots for him to have a chance of winning that fight. It would come down to whether Wladimir’s chin.
Lewis should know what Steward is capable of, as he was trained by him as well.
Lewis did a great job after Steward took over as his trainer in 1994 following his knockout loss to Oliver McCall. With Steward as his trainer, Lewis finished out the remainder of his career with a record of 16-1-1. His draw with Evander Holyfield in in March 1999 was a controversial one, as Lewis appeared to win that fight.
The only fight that Lewis clearly lost under Steward was a 5th round knockout defeat to Hasim Rahman in April 2001. Lewis would later avenge the defeat by stopping Rahman in the 4th round in their rematch in November 2001.
If Wladimir doesn’t trust what’s being told to him by Banks, then I don’t know that he’s going to have much success against Joshua. Wladimir did not look well-prepared for his fight against Fury. I don’t know why he looked so bad in that fight.
“Who has more experience [out of Klitschko and the 34-year-old Banks]? Who can tell who what to do?” said Lewis. “It really depends if Klitschko’s listening to Banks. In his last fight when he lost, he wasn’t listening, but Banks was telling him the right things.”
If Wladimir isn’t properly motivated by Banks, then he should switch him out for another trainer while he still has time. It’s got to be a strange experience for Klitschko to be trained by someone that is seven years younger than him in 34-year-old Banks. That doesn’t mean that Banks can’t get Wladimir properly prepared for the Joshua fight.
I’m sure he’ll do his best to get him ready for the fight. But it’s going to be up to Wladimir to let his hands go the way he needs to for him to have a chance of winning the fight. We’ve seen what Joshua does to his opponents if he doesn’t have any worry about them not throwing anything back at him. When Joshua fights passive opponents that don’t throw punches, he goes after them and knocks them out quickly.
It’s impossible to know why these professional fighters don’t give it their best shot against Wladimir by attacking him the way they need to for them to have a chance of winning. They all seem to have the same mindset that they can survive better if they don’t’ throw punches. It never works for them, and they fail to learn from the mistakes made by previous Joshua opponents.
Wladimir’s timing and accuracy has not looked good since his fight against Bryant Jennings in 2014. I don’t think Steward would be able to do much with Wladimir in helping him in those areas, because they seem to be more related to aging than training.
Wladimir has gotten older, and like a lot of older fighters, he’s started to lose his timing and accuracy with his punches. What’s going to hurt Wladimir more for the Joshua fight is the fact that he’s coming off of a long two-year layoff for this fight. Wladimir hasn’t fought since 2015, and he’s not taking any tune-up. That’s his mistake. Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn are simply taking advantage of Wladimir’s inactivity by fighting him on April 29.
You don’t see too many fighters taking a two-year layoff like Wladimir and going into a big title fight straightaway. That’s an amateurish move that Wladimir is taking, but also one that makes him look desperate in a way. Perhaps Wladimir feels he doesn’t have enough youth to take a tune-up fight.
If Wladimir feels that he doesn’t need tune-ups, then that’s a sign of overconfidence on his part, because any fighter that is coming off of a two-year layoff like Wladimir is, they need a tune-up fight or two. The only good that you can say about Wladimir taking the Joshua fight without a tune-up is the fact that it’ll give him an excuse to give the boxing public if/when he loses the fight to Joshua. Instead of Wladimir saying he was beaten by the better fighter, he can tell the fans that he wasn’t prepared properly and that he should have taken some tune-up fights ahead of time to prepare for the fight.
Klitschko and Joshua will be fighting in front of 90,000 boxing fans on April 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The fight will be a sellout by the time the two of them enter the ring. That’s a good thing and a bad thing for Wladimir. It’s potentially bad news for Wladimir because Joshua will likely be very motivated and looking to score a fast knockout.
It could work in Wladimir’s favor if Joshua gets sloppy and forgets that he’s facing an experienced professional fighter with a lot of punching power in Wladimir. If Joshua lets his guard down and fights like he used to in the amateur ranks, Wladimir could knock him out. Joshua was easy to hit in the 2012 Olympics, which he won after beating several fighters by controversial decisions.