By Allan Fox: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) is facing one of his slower and more limited opponents in a long time when he defends his title against Australia’s Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) on April 26th at the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
On paper, this should be a fairly easy fight for the 6’6” Wladimir. Leapai is slow, and has had poor success when facing even decent opposition like Kevin Johnson. The World Boxing Organization gave Leapai a lucky break in letting him fight the previously unbeaten but unproven Denis Boytsov last year in a WBO heavyweight eliminator bout.
Boytsov proved to be the perfect opponent for Leapai due to his limited movement and his lack of size. Had Boytsov watched Leapai’s losing effort against Kevin Johnson, he would have realized straight away that Leapai has problems when getting hit a lot with jabs. But Boytsov instead focused on fighting at a slow pace and throwing nothing but power shots. He was asking for trouble with that approach against Leapai, and this led to Leapai knocking him down a couple of times en route to winning a decision.
It’s no secret that Wladimir doesn’t have the greatest chin you’ll ever see, and it’s been a while since he faced a guy that had the power or size to test his chin the way that Leapai can. But for Leapai to land his big shots, Wladimir will need to stand in front of him long enough for him to hurt him with one of his shots. It’s going to take more than one punch for Leapai to hurt Wladimir.
The first big shot that he lands will likely send Wladimir into the retreat mode to keep from getting hit a second time. Leapai has good power, but he’s not a one-punch type of heavyweight. He will need Wladimir to stay in one place long enough for him to KO him.
Wladimir’s last fight was against former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin last year. Wladimir didn’t give Povetkin a chance to land his shots, as he chose to clinch him for 12 rounds in an almost un-watchable. Povetkin was clearly a better fighter than Leapai, so Wladimir kind of had to fight him in a defensive manner for 12 rounds to keep from getting caught by one of his hard combinations.
Leapai is definitely a step down from Wladimir’s past four opponents Povetkin, Francesco Pianeta, Mariusz Wach and Tony Thompson. But he’s at least around the same level as Wladmir’s over-matched opponent Jean Marc Mormeck from two years ago in 2012. That was a horrible mismatch that had many fans wondering why Wladimir hand-picked him. In the case of Leapai, Wladimir had little choice but to fight him due to him being his WBO mandatory challenger. But in many of Wladimir’s other recent fights, he’s been facing guys that were chosen by him in optional title defenses. It’s unfortunate the the WBO picked Boytsov and Leapai to fight for the mandatory position, because there were arguably much better heavyweights than those two fighters from top to bottom who were ignored in the process.
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