By Jim Dower: The knock on IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko is that he’s a boring, safety first fighter who lacks heart. Some people think Wladimir does just enough to win his fights, and because of that believe, many boxing fans have lost interest in watching Wladimir fight. This hasn’t been lost on HBO, who now rarely shows any of Klitschko’s fights anymore. That’s hard to imagine for a heavyweight who has dominated the heavyweight division for the most part for the past five years.
But Klitschko fails to fight in an exciting manner, as he seems complacent to just jab and clinch his way along until his opponents eventually drop over after he finally hits them with a right hand or left hook. Klitschko’s style of fighting has become quite dull since he started being trained by Emanuel Steward six years ago. It’s worked for Klitschko, as he’s only lost once under the helm of Steward.
However, he’s become so boring that many fans aren’t interested in watching him fight any longer. If Wladimir wasn’t to try and win back those same fans that have been deserting his ship, he needs to start throwing more power shots and try to show some urgency starting with his March 20th fight against the American challenger Chambers.
This would appear to be the perfect fight for Klitschko to try and look good in, because Chambers isn’t much of a puncher and is badly undersized in this fight at only 6’1” 208. Chambers’ lack of height will be a problem for him in this fight or at least it should be. Chambers feels that his small size will help him because it will enable him to be faster and land shots that Klitschko can’t defend against.
Chambers will be trying to pressure Klitschko and make him uncomfortable. Chambers has nothing to lose in this fight, so you can expect him to fight his heart out trying to get a stoppage win. But Wladimir has a lot to gain. It’s really important for him to fight as hard as he can and make every effort to try and take Chambers out in a spectacular fashion.
If Wladimir wants a future fight against World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye to be a potential mega fight, he’s going to have to show more aggression by trying to take out Chambers. Wladimir can’t afford to play it safe yet again like he did against the equally small Sultan Ibragimov in 2008. That fight turned off a lot of boxing fans, because Wladimir towered over the 6’2” Ibragimov, who had no power to speak of going for him.
But instead of trying to tee off on Ibragimov with big power shots, Wladimir played it safe by jabbing from the outside and clinching Ibragimov constantly. In between rounds, Steward practically begged Wladimir to open up with his offense, but nothing worked. Wladimir continued to play it safe until the end of the fight. The crowd hated it and by then many of them had already left the arena in frustration.
Comments are closed.