Photo credit: Pavel Terekhov – By William Mackay: Saturday’s fight between World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (39-2, 37 KO’s) and his handpicked opponent Alberto Sosnowski (45-2-1, 27 KO’s) is expected to draw as many as 60,000 fans at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. This is an extraordinary number of fans for a fight that is a terrible mismatch before the first punch has even been thrown. The 38-year-old Klitschko selected the #11 ranked WBC contender over higher ranked and arguably much more talented fighters like Odlanier Solis, Denis Boytsov, Nikolay Valuev, Tomasz Adamek, Tony Thompson and Samuel Peter.

Klitschko and Sosnowski fans like to point out that anyone can be knocked out on any given night. However, let’s be real here. Sosnowski has zero chance of winning and was likely selected for his inflated record, because he’s someone easily beatable, and the fact that he could draw some Polish fans to the event. Other than that, there’s really no point in Klitschko fighting a guy this. Sosnowski hasn’t shown himself yet to be capable of holding his own against a fighter like Klitschko and it would take close to a miracle for Sosnowski to hang in there for 12 rounds without getting stopped. I’m not even talking about being competitive or winning. I’m talking about just lasting the fight for the full 12 rounds. That’s the only question is see in this fight.

I applaud Klitschko for selecting someone who could fill a number of needs at one time, but I’m disappointed that he chose someone that basically has no chance of winning the fight. Klitschko has worked at building Sosnowski instead of tearing him down, saying “I know Sosnowski is hungry. He’s tough. He has nothing to lose. This is a big chance and opportunity for him to win a world title. I know it will be not easy to fight against him. I see in his eye that he is hungry for the fight and hungry to take the world title. It will be a real battle.”

It’s never a good sign when a champion like Vitali is trying to build up his opponent. That tells me that he knows he’s got an easy fight and feeling as if he has to come to the rescue of his opponent by saying good things about him. I wish this was a good opponent but unless Klitschko has suddenly lost it altogether over night, this should be another easy fight for him. Sosnowski is too slow, and doesn’t move well or hit hard enough to cause Klitschko too many problems. I just hope Vitali doesn’t keep Sosnowski around too long because this fight could end up looking really sloppy by the end of it.