By Dave Lahr: After waiting two long years for a title shot against International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, Alexander Povetkin, the mandatory challenger to Klitschko’s title, will fight for the interim IBF title in January 2010.

A potential opponent could be #3 rated IBF contender Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KO’s), who already lost a 12 round unanimous decision to Povetkin last year in January in the IBF heavyweight title eliminator match. As of now, there’s no indication whether Chambers will take the rematch with Povetkin or not to fight for the IBF interim title.

Frankly, however, Chambers would be crazy to even consider fighting Povetkin for the interim title. Why do that and get pennies when Chambers has a title fight against Wladimir Klitschko in 2010 anyway. It would be stupid for Chambers to even waste his time fighting Povetkin, since it wouldn’t bring in the money or the notoriety that he’d get in a fight against Wladimir Klitschko.

Povetkin isn’t a bad heavyweight, to be sure, but he’s clearly not in the class of Klitschko. I think Chambers name was just thrown out there by someone, because this isn’t something that he’d very likely be interested in, not when he has a title shot against Wladimir Klitschko.

Fighting Povetkin would be like taking a step backwards. Seriously, I think it would be a bad fight for Chambers to take anyway. He got dominated by Povetkin last year in their fight, and I can’t see anything changing in a rematch. Right now, a lot of boxing fans are excited about Chambers because he’s lost some weight and beaten Samuel Peter and Alexander Dimitrenko in back to back fights.

Those are certainly good wins, make no mistake about it. However, Chambers looked hardly impressive in either of those fights. In the fight against Samuel Peter, Chambers won by a narrow 10 round majority decision and looked like crap. He was facing a badly out of shape 265 pound Peter, the highest weight for Peter’s career. Even with Peter coming in at an obese 265, he still almost beat Chambers.

If Peter had come in at a more reasonable weight, I have no doubts that he would have easily beaten Chambers in that fight. Seriously, Chambers looked very average in that fight and nothing to get excited about. He was good enough to barely beat a 265 pound Peter. What does that say about Chambers?

Not much I’m afraid. As for Chambers fight against Dimitrenko, Chambers lost the first five rounds of the fight and looked bad during that part of the fight. It was only after Dimitrenko tired out that Chambers was able to win the fight by outworking a tired Dimitrenko in the second half of the bout. So if Chambers were to fight Povetkin again, he’d just lose like last time.

It wouldn’t matter what weight Chambers came in for the fight. He’d still lose. But he needs to go after the bigger money against Wladimir rather than take the smaller amount facing Povetkin. Either way, Chambers is going to get beaten by either Povetkin or Klitschko. He might as well take the fight against Klitschko and get a better payday.

If Chambers doesn’t fight Povetkin, then Samuel Peter is next in line to fight for the IBF interim title. I don’t know that Peter will take this fight either, because he’s still in a rebuilding stage in his career after losing to Chambers and Vitali Klitschko in back to back losses recently. With his number #4 ranking in the IBF, Peter also would be better off waiting to get a shot against Wladimir.

Peter fought him really well in prior fight with Klitschko in 2005, knocking him down three times and still losing by a close 12 round decision. Peter matches up much better against Wladimir than a fighter like Povetkin, who has a better chin and a good work rate. Povetkin could find himself fighting someone like 40-year-old Oleg Maskaev or one of the other heavyweight contenders like Dimitrenko or Denis Boytsov rather than Chambers or Peter.