Did Wladimir Klitschko Make a Mistake By Choosing Hasim Rahman As His Next Opponent?

By Boxing News - 11/03/2008 - Comments

wladimir5564246.jpgBy Dan Ambrose: It seems as if IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (51-3, 45 KOs) is about to go back in a time machine, all the way back to March 2003 when he was flattened in the 2nd round by hard punching Corrie Sanders. This time, instead of Sanders, it will be former IBF/WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman (45-6-2, 36 KOs) who Klitschko will be facing on December 13th at the SAP-Arena, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Wladimir’s original opponent, the smallish 6’1″, light-hitting Alexander Povetkin, injured his foot while training in Russia, making it necessary for Klitschko to find a replacement opponent suitable enough to interest the cable companies showing the fight. Rather than facing someone with less hand speed, someone like Oleg Maskaev, Wladimir has selected former champion Rahman, who with his excellent power and long reach, has a good chance at finding Wladimir’s soft chin and taking him out. This is a fight that will quite possibly backfire on Wladimir, for in choosing Rahman, Wladimir is virtually guaranteed an opponent that will test his chin at some point in the fight with a huge punch or two.

Unlike his last two opponents, Wladimir won’t be able to relax for a moment because Rahman will be trying to take his head off with every punching, knowing that Wladimir’s chin isn’t top notch. Rahman has previously taken out 6’5″ Lennox Lewis with a big right hand in January 2001 in a 5th round TKO to capture Lewis’ IBF/WBC heavyweight title. Lewis, though, had a decent chin and could take a much better shot than Wladimir has shown to be able to withstand in his career. This may turn out to be a much easier task for Rahman than he had to deal with against the formidable Lewis.

One would hope that Wladimir has a rematch clause built into the contract just in case Rahman lands one of his big right hands again. Obviously, Wladimir is hoping that at 35, Rahman has lost enough of his hand speed and power to make him more vulnerable than he was seven years ago. I wouldn’t bank on it though, because Rahman’s power seems to be firmly in tact with knockout wins over Zuri Lawrence, Cerrone Fox and Kali Meehan in the past few years. I’d rate their chins right along next to Wladimir’s in terms of brittleness.

Unless Wladimir can come up with a plan to avoid getting hit by Rahman, such as holding and running a lot, I see Wladimir getting nailed by a right hand sooner or later by Rahman and stopped. While Rahman has had his share of bad luck in the past couple of years, with a loss to Maskaev, and a no-contest with James Toney, he’s still plenty powerful enough to make short work of Wladimir if he can land his right hand.

For this reason, Wladimir needs to either come up with some kind of plan to hide his chin, maybe a Rocky Marciano fighting crouch or he should consider cancelling the fight. The crouch probably wouldn’t work because Rahman has very long arms and wouldn’t have any problems finding Wladimir’s chin no matter how hard he tries to hide it. Cancelling the bout, complaining of an injury, would be the perfect way out. I think Wladimir needs to do that, and wait around for Povetkin to finish licking his wounds and return to the ring.



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