By Allan Fox: The October 5th fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KO’s) and WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (26-0, 18 KO’s) is now a “done deal” according to Team Povetkin. The two fighters’ management have been negotiating over the drug testing for the fight, which had been one of the last points that need to be ironed out.
Fightnews.com is reporting that Vladimir Hironov announced that the Povetkin-Wladimir fight is a “Done deal.”
It’s not surprising that the two teams were able to negotiate the fight because there’s so much money on the line for this one. Both Wladimir and Povetkin will get career paydays. The fight will be taking place at the Olimpiyskiy, in Moscow, Russia.
The 6’6” Wladimir will have a four inch height and a six inch reach advantage over the 6’2” Povetkin. The fight will resemble in some ways a heavyweight fighting a cruiserweight because Wladimir is simply much bigger than Povetkin.
The real question in this fight is whether Povetkin can get close enough to land his shots to try and wear Wladimir down. Povetkin likes to throw a lot of punches and he’s got good power. However, he’s giving away so much height and reach in this fight that by the time he does get near enough to land any of his punches, he’ll have been hit with Wladimir’s big shots. Wladimir likes to tie up his opponents when they get close to him, so it’s unlikely that Povetkin will get a lot of chances to throw shots. He’ll have to make his punches count when he does get close because Wladimir will either grab him or move away to escape the pressure.
Wladimir has the power, speed and skill advantage in this fight. He should be able to beat Povetkin on size alone, but there’s always a possibility for an upset if Povetkin can get to Wladimir’s chin or if he can wear him down the way that Ross Puritty did in 1998.
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