Can Anyone Beat Vitali Klitschko?

By Boxing News - 09/27/2009 - Comments

klitschko34322By Scott Gilfoid: After watching World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko put on a masterful display last night in defeating his number #1 challenger Chris Arreola in a 10th round stoppage, I have to wonder if there’s any fighter out there, besides his brother IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, who can beat Vitali? Klitschko may be getting up there in age at 38, but the way he looked last night, he might as well be 28 because he looked like he was out of this world in terms of talent.

Vitali’s hand speed is nothing to get excited about, but his power, reach and ring expertise makes him very hard to beat. Right now, I can’t even begin to come up with a heavyweight that I think would even be competitive with him. I know the Brits are really excited about former cruiserweight champion David Haye, but let’s be real about this. Haye would have been beaten even worse than Arreola and likely stopped in a round or two.

Haye did the wise thing by fleeing from his fights against both brothers rather than take them and get exposed. However, Haye has the basic ingredients – speed and power – that are needed to beat Vitali Klitschko. The problem with Haye, though, is that his chin is like glass and he seems to have a problem stepping it up against the Klitschko brothers.

I seriously doubt he will ever fight either of them, but I do think he’ll continue to talk in the media to make it appear that he wants to fight them. It’s called name dropping and it works as an attention getter, if nothing else.

Below, I’ve listed the heavyweights that I consider to be the top fighters in the division and I’ve given my thoughts on how they might do against Vitali.

David Haye – As I said, I can’t see Haye ever fighting Klitschko. Haye knows that he’s better off looking for the easier marks in the heavyweight division like WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev and Monte Barrett, and he’s probably going to be content to stay along those lines when facing future heavyweight opponents.

If Haye does beat Valuev on November 7th to win the WBA title, there will be a lot of pressure on Haye to fight one of the Klitschko brothers. If Haye is basically shamed into taking a fight against one of them, then I see Haye getting flattened in a round or two. He won’t fight Vitali, let’s be clear on that right now. He knows he would stand no chance against him because of Vitali’s tough chin. So what we’ll have is Wladimir vs. Haye. Basically, this is the same result as Vitali vs. Haye, only that the fight will six or seven rounds because Wladimir won’t want to mix it up with Haye like Vitali would.

Kevin Johnson – This is another mismatch even worse than the Arreola fight. Johnson has no power and can’t crack eggs with his punches. His best weapon is his jab and his work rate is poor. He looks slightly overweight at 6’3″ 246, and from what I’ve seen of him, he appears to be slowing down as a fighter. Armed with only jabs in his arsenal, Johnson will be pummeled by Vitali, toyed with for eight or nine rounds until dropped and taken out. This would be a really boring fight to watch and I’m hoping Vitali doesn’t choose to fight him next.

Odlanier Solis – a good fighter as an amateur but a pro, he seems to lack discipline and has gotten very fat to the point where it’s having an effect on his ability to get around the ring. Only 6’1″, Solis now weights in the neighborhood of 260, much too fat for him to carry around the ring. He still has good hand speed but zero power. This would be a beating similar to the Arreola fight, but Solis would fade much quicker and not be willing to take the kind of beating that Arreola did.

Alexander Povetkin -This is probably the toughest opponent that Vitali has right now in the heavyweight division. Povetkin is a pressure fighter known for having a high work rate. However, he’s much short and small at 6’2″ and wouldn’t be able to get near Vitali without taking severe punishment. Povetkin would be better off losing some baby fat and moving down to the cruiserweight division because he doesn’t have the size to compete with the Klitschko brothers.

He’s young enough to hang around until they both retire and then maybe he might win a title. However, he’s still very short for a heavyweight and will need to take a lot of punishment in his fights to keep winning. Against Vitali, Povetkin won’t lay a glove on him and will lose every round until the fight is eventually stopped around the 8th because both of Povetkin’s eyes are closed from swelling.

Eddie Chambers – Too small, too weak and too heavy to compete with Vitali. Chambers struggled at times against Alexander Dimitrenko before beating him by a 12 round majority decision in July. This by far was Chamber’s best win of his career, but it was really nothing special considering that Dimitrenko was totally overrated as a fighter. Right now, a lot of boxing fans have gotten excited about Chambers because of the Dimitrenko fight and are under the mistaken impression that he’s the best thing since sliced bread because of that win.

However, beating Dimitrenko is no big deal because the big Ukrainian has no power and can’t fight on the inside the way Klitschko can. Chambers struggled to beat a grossly overweight Samuel Peter in March, winning a close 10 round majority decision. I saw the fight and if Peter had come in at a reasonable weight, he would have beaten Chambers, make no mistake about it.

Against Vitali, Chambers would be way over his head and would lose every round of the fight before it gets stopped by, say, the 6th round. Chambers may stick around and absorb punishment longer than that, especially if he runs all night but he won’t be competitive and will just be losing rounds by not fighting.



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