By Chris Williams: Through no great surprise, World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (38-2, 37 KO’s) ended up throwing more punches – 802 – in his 10th round stoppage of previously unbeaten Chris Arreola last Saturday night compared to Floyd Mayweather’s 493 for his 12 round unanimous decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez on September 19th.
What makes it even more interesting is that Vitali Klitschko is 6’7 and weighs 252 compared to the 5’8” 150+ Mayweather. No one knows for sure what Mayweather weighed on the night of his bout with Marquez, because Mayweather reportedly refused to be weighed. But by looking at him, he appeared to weigh in the neighborhood of 155 to 160.
At that weight, Mayweather, a more or less safety first fighter, should have been able to throw nearly twice the number that he ended up. However, Mayweather mostly threw single pot shots all night long, rarely throwing combinations as he earned a dull 12 round decision.
I thought the fight was at least. Maybe some boxing fans like seeing running and pot shots. Not me. That was a boring fight with a pumped up lightweight – Marquez – being matched up against a welterweight – Mayweather. In contrast, Klitschko was in an equally dull fight but not because he wasn’t throwing a lot of punches, but rather because Arreola was so badly over-matched that he didn’t have the talent to compete with Klitschko in the fight.
It would have been interesting to see how many punches Klitschko would have thrown had the fight gone a full 12 rounds instead of just 10. One could imagine that Klitschko likely would have thrown well over 900 punches if it had gone 12.
For a fighter the size of Klitschko, throwing that many punches is a physical feat. It’s a big deal when super middleweights and light heavyweights throw 1000 punches in a 12 round fight, but when a big giant heavyweight like Klitschko comes near to that, it shows how much talent he has.
Clearly, the Klitschko-Arreola fight was much appealing to watch compared to the Mayweather-Marquez bout, mainly because Klitschko made it interesting by throwing nonstop punches rather than pecking away with single shots like Mayweather did against Marquez. Another thing that made it especially impressive is that Klitschko is 38-years-old compared to Mayweather’s 32.
You would think that Mayweather would be able to throw more punches than the big man given his youth, speed and smaller size. Part of the reason that Klitschko kept punching was because Arreola never let up on the pressure on him.
Indeed, Arreola was relentless with his attacks, chasing Klitschko all over the ring trying to land big shots. Marquez applied pressure on Mayweather, but he didn’t appear as doggedly determined as Arreola was in trying to land his big shots against Klitschko.
For Klitschko, this was his third fight since coming off a 4 year retirement from boxing. Klitschko stopped Samuel Peter in his first fight back in October 2008. Klitschko followed that by stopping Juan Carlos Gomez in his second fight back.
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