By Chris Williams: A couple of weeks ago it was announced that WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) would be fighting “Champion emeritus” Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 34 KOs) in October with the WBC heavyweight title on the line. Up to this point, I’ve heard a lot of people putting the 36 year-old Vitali down, suggesting he would likely re-injure himself training for the fight and that even if he did make it to the fight, Peter would quickly blow him out because of the long extended period of time (four years) that Vitali has been away from the ring.

I personally think there’s going to be a lot of disappointed fans come October when Vitali not only beats Peter, but thrashes him in the same fashion that Vitali did with Kirk Johnson, beating him by an easy 2nd round TKO in their December 2003 WBC title eliminator bout. Johnson was built along the same lines as Peter, around 6’2”, and with a rounded physique. In fact, Johnson, in his prime, had better overall skills than Peter – much better hand speed, work rate, and almost equal in power. Yet, Vitali jumped all over him in the first round of their fight and quickly bludgeoned him into submission, dropping him twice in the second round before the fight was ultimately stopped by the referee by Arthur Mercante Jr. at 2:54 of the second round.

Granted, Vitali has aged somewhat since that time and is now five years older, but both his height (6’8”) and superior boxing skills remain largely intact. Even with the loss of somewhat of his skills, if Vitali can come in at 75% if what he was then, Peter is in for a brutal beat down and will likely look much worse than he did in his only loss of his career, a 12th round unanimous decision loss to Vitali’s brother, Wladimir Klitschko in 2005. Unlike Wladimir, Vitali won’t fight off his back foot all fight long like he did against Peter, and will be looking to unload on him with every shot he throws. With his powerful right hand and short left hook, Vitali will land thudding shots whenever Peter comes in for an attack, hitting him flush every time. Most fighters that have attempted to come directly at Vitali have failed miserably, getting stopped in short order.

Perhaps if Peter had a high guard like, say Ross Puritty, who blocked many of Vitali’s punches with his gloves and huge arms in their December 2001 bout, but eventually Vitali’s shots began getting through Puritty’s guard and he eventually stopped a badly beaten Puritty in the 11th round. If anyone is familiar with Puritty, he’s a fighter that is almost impossible to stop, yet Vitali did it. But, yeah, Vitali’s reflexes and speed will be considerably less against Peter than they were during his prime years, because they have to, due his numerous injuries and extensive time away from the sport. If this bout were to last the full 12-rounds, I’d give Peter an excellent chance of wearing Vitali down in the later rounds and scoring a knockout, only because of Vitali’s long time away from competitive boxing.

However, Peter is going to make it easy on him by going directly after him from the 1st round. This in effect will be playing directly into Vitali’s hands, allowing him to blast away at Peter while he’s still fresh. It won’t take more than 4-5 rounds of Vitali throwing vicious chopping right hands and powerful uppercuts to bust up and stop Peter inside the distance. Most people don’t remember Vitali’s uppercut, a new weapon that he revealed against Danny Williams in his final fight before retiring in 2004. Vitali used that punch in combination with his usual hard downward right hand to drop Williams four times en route to an 8th round stoppage of Williams in December 2004.

The same thing will happen to Peter, who will wade inside (he has no choice but to come inside due to his shorter arms) and take repeated uppercuts to the head. I see this as being much worse than Peter’s problems with Jameel McCline, in which Peter was knocked down multiple times before rallying after McCline tired out. In this case, Vitali won’t tire out and will out a quick finish to Peter before the 6th round.