By Eric Thomas: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (51-3, 45 KOs) will be taking on arguably his toughest opponent in years on Saturday night against former IBF/WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman (45-6-2, 36 KOs) in a 12-round title bout at SAP-Arena, Mannheim, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Rahman, 36, isn’t being given much of a chance by many boxing experts and fans alike, but I think he’s a real live underdog due to his powerful right hand and has a real chance of stopping Wladimir if he can connect with something big.
In Wladimir’s last fight, a 11th TKO over Tony Thompson in July, Wladimir was hit often by the long-armed Thompson and looked bad throughout the fight. Rahman, likewise, has very long arms and will be able to reach Wladimir with right hands and jabs like Thompson was able to.
The difference here, however, is that Rahman has knockout power in his shots and can end a fight with one punch, especially against a fighter with a history of knockout losses like Wladimir. There’s no question that Rahman will be able to land his right hand frequently in this fight.
The real question is whether Wladimir’s weak chin will be able to stand up to those occasional monstrous shots. If not, this will likely be an early night for Rahman. At the same time, Rahman’s own chin isn’t the best and he’s been hurt or stopped in a number of fights, most notably against Lennox Lewis, David Tua and Oleg Maskaev.
However, in most cases, Rahman’s chin typically fails him late in the fight when he’s tired rather than early on. In the second Lewis fight, though, Rahman was hit with a huge left-right combination by Lewis in the 4th round and was taken out.
Wladimir doesn’t hit quite as hard as Lewis does nor does he fight as bold and as confident as him. It’s reasonable to believe that if Wladimir were to come out fast, he could likely take Rahman out in the 1st or 2nd round with a series of big right hands or left hooks. Unfortunately, that’s likely not going to happen because Wladimir will probably be fighting cautiously, trying to protect his chin and will stay as far away from Rahman as possible.
As it turns out, this may in fact give Rahman more of chance at beating him that he would otherwise have. If Wladimir fights’ slowly, this plays into the hands of the 36-year-old Rahman, who likes to fight slowly, take frequent rest breaks and then load up on a series of big shots in short burst of activity. If Wladimir lets him do this, then he’ll eventually stun him with something big and take him out.
For this reason, Wladimir needs to come out hard and take him out as fast as possible. You can’t let a dangerous puncher like Rahman hang around for too long because he’ll have a much better chance at winning by landing one of his home run shots.
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