By Sean McDaniel: Top WBO heavyweight contender Eddie Chambers (35-2, 18 KO’s) experienced a really bad knockout defeat last Saturday night when he was stopped in the 12th round by IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) at the ESPRIT arena, in Düsseldorf, Germany. Chambers, 27, was badly knocked out after getting nailed by a monstrous left hook to the head from Klitschko, who wound up with the shot and reduced Chambers to a pile of rubble in the corner. Chamber suffered a bad concussion and was motionless after being dropped by Klitschko. There was no movement from Chambers for at least 25 seconds after the knock out.
One has to hope that there isn’t any lingering after effects from this concussion. In a lot of cases, a fighter isn’t the same after being as badly knocked out like Chambers was last Saturday. It affects fighters differently. Some guys have no problems after being viciously knocked out, whereas others are never quite the same fighters after they get badly knocked out. It often leads to them being knocked out easier and easier in the future to the point where they get stopped even by shots that aren’t necessarily big punches.
Chambers has youth going for him, however. He’s only 27k, has time to heal, and can possibly rebound from this bad knockout if he’s brought along slowly by his management team. It would be advisable for Chambers to be put in with lesser punches in the near future to ensure that there aren’t any lingering effects of some hidden brain injury from the stoppage. Klitschko didn’t just hurt him with the left hook; He hurt Chambers earlier in the fight with a big right hand in the 2nd round, staggering Chambers and causing him to hold onto Klitschko to escape the round without getting knocked out.
Chambers did a great job of recovering from the right hand shot, but the shot could have left Chambers slightly less open to having other big shots for the rest of the fight. If you noticed that after getting nailed by the right hand from Klitschko, Chambers mixed it up with him much less, and seemed to stay on the outside except for when he pushed by his team to attack Wladimir later in the fight. The 12th round knockout wasn’t as bad as some knockouts go.
The 2nd round knockout that Ricky Hatton suffered in his loss against Manny Pacquiao last year was much worse in my view. Hatton was out cold for at least three to four minutes after getting nailed by a straight left hand by Pacquiao. That was a really bad knockout and it’s not surprising that Hatton still hasn’t stepped back in the ring since then.
I think Chambers should keep fighting, but he needs to take things really slow for awhile. If he tries to take on another top fighter in his next fight, I can see Chambers possibly getting knocked out again. He needs to ideally take at six months off to let his brain heal, and then take things slowly by facing 2nd tier fighters for awhile.
Comments are closed.