By Jim Dower: Emanuel Steward, the trainer of International Boxing Federation/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (53-3, 47 KO’s), is predicting an 8th round knockout win for Wladimir over challenger Eddie Chambers (35-1, 18 KO’s) on Saturday night in Dusseldorf, Germany. In an article at Yahoo Sports, Steward says “Chambers is the best he’s ever fought, but Wladimir is in the form of his life and he’ll win by KO by round 8 at the latest.”

Steward, a part time analyst for HBO Sports, has been training Klitschko for the past six years and has changed him from a raw slugger to a boxer/puncher. Under his helm, Wladimir has changed his style of fighting and has since won 10 of 11 fights.

Klitschko weighed in today at 244 for Saturday’s fight, a weight which is pretty much his normal weight. In photos, Wladimir has looked huge but strangely enough he’s come into the fight at the same weight he always does. This will be the first fight for Klitschko since beating Ruslan Chagaev by a 9th round stoppage last June. Klitschko has been out of action due to a shoulder injury he suffered. He has since had surgery to repair the problem and has gone through months of rehabilitation.

Chambers, 27, realizes that he has to get past Wladimir’s powerful jab if he wants to have any chance of beating the 6’6” Klitschko. This is what Chambers will be trying to do, as he’s an excellent inside fighter. He does his best work once he is at close range where he can use his fast hands to win rounds. In Chambers last fight last year in July, he was able to get past the jabs and rights of 6’7” number #1 WBO contender Alexander Dimitrenko, defeating him by a 12 round majority decision.

Chambers had little problems ducking under Dimitrenko’s jabs and then working him over on the inside with powerful shots. Dimitrenko ended up taking a beating in the fight and was badly hurt on a couple of occasions. Klitschko can’t make the same mistake that Dimitrenko did by allowing Chambers to get inside and work for extended amounts of time without tying him up with clinches.

Tomorrow night’s bout will be held in the ESPRIT arena, in Düsseldorf, Germany. The arena holds 51,000 and there are currently 46,000 tickets sold for the fight. It was expected to sellout, but it remains to be seen if another 5000 tickets can be sold by fight time tomorrow night.

Regardless if the fight doesn’t sellout or not, those numbers are very good for a fight that has failed to gather much excitement due to the appearances of it being a mismatch. Chambers doesn’t have the notoriety that some other heavyweights like WBA heavyweight champion David Haye has going for him. Haye is the one that Klitschko would like to fight in the near future if Haye can get by his next opponent John Ruiz next month on April 3rd.