International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and World Boxing Organization heavyweight title holder Sultan Ibragimov are reportedly close to signing for their February 23rd unification bout, according to a recent Sports Illustrated article. Klitschko’s PR representitive contacted Sports Illustrated and said that the signing is almost completed. Wladimir Klitschko, 31, has stated that he wants to unify all of the heavweight titles, and the WBO – Ibragimov’s title – is the first goal in the long journey ahead of Wladimir.
Should Klitschko defeat Ibragimov, he still needs to arrange bouts with Ruslan Chagaev, the WBA heavyweight champion, and the winner of Samuel Peter vs. Oleg Maskaev, for the WBC heavyweight title. In between those two bouts, Wladimir has a mandatory defense of his IBF title against the winner of the IBF tournament, which is down to Alexander Povetkin and Eddie Chambers.
Most likely it will be Povetkin as Wladimir’s mandatory defense, as he’s looked slightly better than Chambers, who struggled to beat Calvin Brock. However, Povetkin had problems of his own in the process of stopping former two-time heavyweight champion Chris Byrd, so it remains to be seen who will emerge as the mandatory for Wladimir’s title.
As for Ibragimov, he recently one a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision over Evander Holyfield, a bout that took place in Moscow, Russia. Ibragimov did what he had to do to defeat Holyfield, but he was far from impressive, fighting mostly defensely on his back foot for most of the bout. It was highly dull, and painfull to watch. Ibragimov, a southpaw, is another one of the smaller heavyweight champions from Eastern Europe. He doesn’t have much power, and relies on movement, defense and quick hands to defeat his opponents. His lack of power and size figure to be major handicaps for him as he goes into the unification bout with Wladimir.
It will be interesting to see how he attempts to even the odds, as he won’t be able to fight from the outside as is his custom, because Wladimir prefers to fight his opponents in that manner, using his long reach to batter them senseless. Which means, Ibragimov will have to take chances by trying to come in inside if he is to have any luck at defeating Wladimir.
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