By David Lahr: You got to hand it to Vitali Klitschko, he has a lot of courage to make a boxing comeback after four years out of the ring, especially in choosing perhaps the best fighter in the heavyweight division in WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) on October 11th in Berlin. But, of course, the greatest challenge of all will be for Vitali to get to the bout in one piece without falling apart from one injury or another before then. It’s been four years since Vitali last fight, at which time he defeated British heavyweight Danny Williams by an 8th round TKO in December 2004.
Though it was only four years ago, that’s practically a lifetime for a sport like boxing, which is a young man’s sport and it has a way of exposing older fighters like Vitali as old men in an instant. Whatever Klitschko may have been in the past, it’s highly unlikely that he will be even close to the same level he was four years ago when he last held the WBC heavyweight title. At that time, he may have been the best heavyweight in boxing, but that’s probably not the case any longer. There’s little doubt that Vitali has the boxing skills, size and power to defeat the Nigerian Peter, but the problem is that Vitali has often had trouble in the later rounds of his fight, and one could expect that he probably hasn’t improved in that area with the significant time that he’s been away from boxing.
The lack of stamina is, to be sure, a major concern for Vitali, because he’s going to need to be able to fight long and hard if he hopes to beat a strong-chinned fighter like Peter, who is known for having an excellent chin. Peter has been hit by the best of them, from Wladimir Klitschko to Oleg Maskaev, yet Peter has never been close to being stopped during that time. This means that unless Vitali can somehow find his old knockout power early on, he’s going to have trouble as the fight gets into the later rounds, a time when Peter’s big shots tend to start wearing down his opponents.
For this reason, it will probably work in Vitali’s favor if he can try and take Peter out as fast as he can before he starts wearing down. Peter showed himself to being susceptible in the early rounds against 6’6″ Jameel McCline, who hurt him with a big hook and then proceeded to knock Peter down three times in succession. McCline, however, ran out of gas and wasn’t able to find the finishing tough to taking Peter out. If Vitali can hurt Peter, he may prove to much more potent.
Say what you want about Vitali, he has always been an excellent finisher when he has an opponent hurt. Vitali is deadly accurate with his right hand, and if he can land one or two big shots, he could perhaps take Peter out if he can get enough power into the shot. Vitali will likely still have his power, if not his speed, which is why I give him a puncher’s chance at defeating Peter. Minus that, however, I think Peter will probably beat him.
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