Photo credit: Pavel Terekhov – By Jim Dower: WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (39-2, 37 KO’s) will be making an optional title defense against his #11 ranked WBC opponent Alberto Sosnowski (45-2-1, 27 KO’s) in what is almost guaranteed to be a terrible mismatch at the Veltins Arena, Gelsenkirchen, in Germany. Like a lot of his opponents, Sosnowski thinks he actually has a chance, saying in an article at the Mirror “I don’t think it is a huge step up in class. Vitali is pretty predictable.” This is amusing coming from Sosnowski, who struggled against Danny Williams and was soundly beaten by journeyman Zuri Lawrence. Sosnowski, 31, is faster than Vitali, but he’s not a real huge puncher.

In looking at Sosnowski’s fight with Danny Williams, Sosnowski wasn’t nearly the puncher that Williams was. In the 4th round, Williams had Sosnowski badly hurt from a right hand. However, Sosnowski resorted to fouling, wrestling Williams to the ropes and then trying to bend him way over the ropes to buy time. Eventually, Sosnowski recovered and went on to stop Williams but the fight was very competitive throughout. Sosnowski reminds me of a slower version of Tomasz Adamek. He’s decent but he’s way out of his class against Klitschko.

Sosnowski gets hit too much and doesn’t fight tall, has no jab. I noticed that he complains a lot to the referee for this or that. I hope he doesn’t do that against Vitali because it could make for an ugly fight with the constant complaining after getting hit.

Vitali needed an opponent after his fight negotiations with former WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev went nowhere. But instead of picking a top contender, Vitali opted to select a heavyweight from by the bottom of the pack and chose Sosnowski, a decent fringe contender. In looking at Sosnowski, he looks good physically but when you see him fight it becomes clear that he doesn’t have the power or the hand speed to compete with either of the Klitschko brothers.

Sosnowski, 6’2″, just doesn’t have the big enough size and power to hold his own against the big 6’7” Vitali. Sosnowski likes to slug and throw uppercuts on the inside. He probably won’t get too many opportunities to throw that punch against Vitali, because he likes to keep his opponents on the outside. Sosnowski is going to have problems landing his overhand right because of the distance it will have to travel to get to Vitali.

More than likely, Vitali will lean away from Sosnowski when he shoots right hand and then Vitali counter with left hooks that will catch Sosnowski to the side of the head. This pattern will probably be repeated over and over again until Vitali knocks Sosnowski off balance and then finishes him with a chopping right hand. Hopefully, with this easy win, Vitali will have gotten his desire to fight easy opponents out of his system and will start taking on some more serious challengers like Odlanier Solis, Denis Boytsov or Adamek. WBA heavyweight champion David Haye would be a great option, only he seems reluctant to fight the Klitschko brothers right now.