By Dave Lahr: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) one of the most timid looking fights I can remember seeing for 11 boring round until finally getting his act together and scoring a 12th round knockout win over American Eddie Chambers (35-2, 18 KO’s) with only five seconds to go until the end of the fight. But it took the urging of his trainer Emanuel Steward for the 33-year-old Klitschko to man up and go for the knockout. With Steward all over his backside, Klitschko came out for the 12th round on fire, throwing right hands with abandon and driving Chambers all around the ring.

Finally, Klitschko cornered Chambers and nailed him with a left hook to the head that sent Chambers down immediately. It was one of those scary one-punch knockout jobs where the fighter is out cold while on the way down. Chambers was badly hurt from the shot, which he probably never saw coming. Chambers got used to getting hit by right hands from Wladimir and was expecting the left hook to the head until too late.

Overall, it was a really boring fight with little action to speak of. I don’t blame Chambers. It’s not his fault. He was at least trying to make a fight, but given his small 6’1” 209 stature, he was like a cruiserweight fighting a super heavyweight. There was just too much of a size difference between Klitschko and him for Chambers to do much other than swipe at the air, land an occasional body or head. He was just too small.

After a good 1st round by Chambers where he landed a couple of nice right hands, he got a little reckless in the 2nd and was nailed by a big right hand from Klitschko and staggered. Klitschko briefly went balls to wall to try and score a knockout, but he was all over the place, missing most of what he was throwing. Chambers easily made it out of the round by staying composed and fighting back well.

After the 2nd round, Klitschko seemed content to just bore the 51,000 fans that came to the ESPRIT arena, in Düsseldorf, Germany. Klitschko threw mostly jabs from the 3rd round until the 12th round when Steward finally got him to fight a little. In between that time, Chambers attacked a lot, but mostly came up empty because he didn’t have the arm length to reach the tall 6’7” Klitschko.

In the 8th round, Klitschko landed a couple of good right hands, but still he didn’t throw enough to make it entertaining. Like in the other rounds, Klitschko kept firing jab after jab, and controlling the fight with them alone. It was working for him, but as big as he is, he should have at least shown some urgency to try and entertain all those fans that came to see him. It was sad to see Klitschko acting so timid against a fighter who has no power and is six inches shorter than him. Instead of Klitschko attacking, it was Chambers doing most of the attacking during the fight.

In the 12th round, Klitschko looked impressive for the first and only time in the fight, punishing Chambers with huge right hands to the head. Chambers had been doing the attacking in the 10th and 11th rounds, and it looked to me like Wladimir was starting to show signs of fatigue because he wasn’t doing much other than just jabbing and looking scared like a rabbit.

But in the 12th, Wladimir was like the old Wladimir, throwing power after power shot, and sending Chambers running for cover. Finally, Wladimir connected with a perfect left hook to the head at the very end of the round to send Chambers down. It was the perfect end to the fight. The knockout still didn’t take away from how bad Klitschko looked in the earlier rounds. Just bad.