By Jason Kim: Although IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) dominated American Eddie Chambers (35-2, 18 KO’s) for the entire 12 rounds and eventually stopped him in the 12th round last Saturday night for an exciting ending to the fight, it might not have been enough to impress American television network executives at HBO to want to put Klitschko on their cable network in the future. We’ll have to see what happens, but I don’t think this is the kind of performance that Klitschko needed to make a statement for himself as the kind of fighter that the average American boxing fan wants to see for an entertaining fight.

The 33-year-old Klitschko had the perfect opponent for him to look good against last Saturday night with the small and weak 6’1” 209 pound Chambers. If this wasn’t someone that Klitschko would feel brave enough to let his power punches go against, I don’t know who is. However, despite nothing much coming back from Chambers all night long other than a few missed punches here and there, Klitschko fought like he was treading on egg shells.

Klitschko threw mainly jabs for the most part in every round and would mix in an occasional rare right hand three or four times per round. I don’t know why Klitschko was using his right hand and left hook so sparingly in the fight. I thought for a second that maybe Klitschko had injured his right hand because he just wasn’t throwing it enough in the fight for him to have any chance of scoring an early knockout.

To be honest, Chambers was a knockout waiting to happen. He had no power and just stood there in front of Wladimir for 12 rounds without any head movement. His corner kept telling Chambers to move his head, but he never really did. He did start moving a little late in the fight, but it wasn’t enough to where he was giving Wladimir any real troubles except for in the 12th, when Chambers was literally running for his life as Wladimir was looking for a knockout.

Klitschko’s trainer Emanuel Steward was kind sounding in the earlier rounds, telling Klitschko gently to throw more power shots. But after getting very little out of Klitschko aside from some cautious hunt and peck shots, Steward seemed to lose his temper with Klitschko in the last two rounds, telling him how to go after Chambers and start throwing combinations.

Steward said he didn’t want to have another decision like the one Klitschko won against Sultan Ibragimov. In that fight, held two years ago in February 2008, Klitschko had a small 6’2” Ibragimov, who had little power to speak of, and Klitschko did little other than gingerly jab at him for 12 dull rounds, earning an eventual 12 round decision.

The win was largely criticized by many American boxing writers as well as fans, who were turned off by how timid looking Wladimir was in that fight. With that in mind, Steward urged Wladimir to fight harder to go after Chambers. To this end, Wladimir did fight hard in the 11th and especially in the `12th rounds. To his credit, Wladimir was finally able to take Chambers out with a nice left hook that landed on the temple of Chambers, knocking him completely out and dropping him to the canvas.

However, it shouldn’t have taken Klitschko that many rounds to score the knockout. He waited far too long to fight aggressively and turned a fight that should have been easy into one that was pretty much another boring fight for him. I think this was another missed opportunity for Klitschko to impress and win back fans.