By Matt Stein: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Kitschko (52-3, 46 KO’s) has been fighting as a professional for 13 years now, but has failed at gaining a huge following in boxing. Wladimir’s trainer Emanuel Steward is still hoping that Klitschko can become a super star before he’s done with his career, and sees upcoming bouts against Alexander Povetkin and possible Chris Arreola as fights that could put Wladimir into super stardom if he can win with a big knockout that impresses boxing fans.
If that’s the case, then Wladimir is going to have to change his style of fighting in a big way because he’s been pretty much a safety first type fighter since his 5th round TKO loss to Lamon Brewster in their first fight five years ago in April 2004. That loss seems to have left a permanent impression on Wladimir, because he takes few chances in fights since then tending to want to beat his opponents by jabbing them and landing occasional big punches.
In his loss to Brewster, Wladimir started off too quickly while trying for a knockout and ended up tiring himself out. Wladimir has made it a point to pace himself since that fight and doesn’t come close to tiring himself out in fights against Samuel Peter, Chris Byrd, Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, a rematch with Brewster, Sultan Ibragimov, Tony Thompson and Hasim Rahman.
Wladimir hasn’t scored a quick knockout since defeating the badly over-matched Ray Austin in a 2nd round knockout two years ago in March 2007. That fight was hardly impressive because Wladimir failed to throw one right hand the entire two rounds of the fight.
In the first round, Klitschko threw nothing but jabs, and in the 2nd round, Wladimir ended the fight after hurting Austin with a big left hook and then nailing him repeatedly with a flurry of left hooks to put him down. Throwing nothing but jabs and left hooks won’t do much for impressing boxing fans because they’ll be wondering why Wladimir is so hesitant to throw a right hand and will likely see it as him being too timid to take a chance and fire off a right hand.
If anything, British heavyweight David Haye has a better chance of becoming a boxing super star more than Wladimir, because at least Haye isn’t afraid to throw right hands. Haye may have just as weak a chin as Wladimir, but Haye doesn’t let his fear of being knocked out prevent him from throwing his own bombs.
If Wladimir wants to get to the next level, he’s going to have to try to get back his old style of fighting in which he went out looking for knockouts. However, even back then, Wladimir wasn’t a one-punch knockout artist. He punches hard with either hand but he never had the big right hand that Lennox Lewis possessed in his prime.
It took Wladimir a series of big shots over at least two to eight rounds to get most of his knockouts. If Wladimir were to go back to that style of fighting he would definitely be a much more popular fighter, but it’s doubtful that he would ever be powerful enough to score the dramatic knockouts needed to excite American boxing fans in the same way that Mike Tyson did in his prime.
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