By Dave Lahr: IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) has been able to go six long years between knockout losses, but I think his string is about to be ended on September 11th against the powerful former WBC heavyweight champion Sam Peter (34-3, 27 KO’s) in their title fight at the Commerzhank-Arena, in Frankfurt, Germany. Peter, 29, showed that he had Klitschko’s number five years ago in their previous fight in 2005, a fight in which Peter knocked Wladimir down three times in the fight even though Wladimir fought much of the fight clinging to Peter to prevent the hard hitting Nigerian warrior from hitting him. Personally, I thought Wladimir should have been penalized repeatedly for his excessive holding because it was beyond the norm and it kept Peter from fighting. When you got a fighter like Wladimir, who was literally diving at Peter for clinches, that tells you that Wladimir was clinching for too much in the fight.

I’m hoping the referee is on his job for the rematch on September 11th, because I suspect Wladimir will have the same game plan in trying to stop Peter’s high power offense as last time out. What else is Wladimir going to do? He won’t be able to stand in front of Peter and punch with him like his older brother WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko was able to do in his 8th round stoppage of Peter in 2008.Wladimir doesn’t have the chin or the style to fight the way that Vitali did against Peter. Vitali was willing to take Peter’s big shots in order to throw his own. It really helped Vital that he was able to lean backwards and avoid may of Peter’s big shots.

However, Peter still was able to land some big punches in the first five rounds of the bout, but Vitali took the occasional big shot without any problems and kept firing back his jabs, short left hooks and right hands to beat Peter up. I think the shots that Peter landed against Vitali would put Wladimir on the canvas for the 10 count. That’s going to be a problem or Wladimir, because he won’t be able to stand in front of Peter like his older brother did, and he won’t likely be able to move for 12 rounds like he did five years ago.

Wladimir is 34 now, and not on his energetic as he was back in 2005. I think Wladimir can move around the ring for three or four rounds, but not much more than that without tiring out. If he tries to fight the same way now like he did last time against Peter, I see Wladimir exhausting himself much like he did in his 11th round knockout loss to Ross Puritty in 1998 and will get stopped. There’s really only one way that Wladimir can beat Peter, and that’s by using Wladimir’s punch & grab technique that he used last time against him. But if I’m the referee working the fight, I would penalize Wladimir for excessive holding until he stops impeding the flow of the fight. It’s not fair to have one fighter clinching constantly just to keep his opponent from punching him.

If that’s Wladimir’s game plan, then I hope he has a back-up plan just in case the referee is on his job that night. And if I’m Peter, I would plan on battering Wladimir during every clinch to keep him from doing any more clinching in the future. Peter might want to study Alfredo Angulo’s recent fight against Joachim Alcine. Angulo refused to be clinched in that fight and battered Alcine when he attempted to clinch him. It takes two fighters to clinch. Peter needs to prevent Wladimir from doing that by hitting him each time he gets grabbed.