Klitschko clinches his way to victory over Peter

By Boxing News - 09/12/2010 - Comments

Image: Klitschko clinches his way to victory over PeterBy Dave Lahr: Just as I expected, IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (55-3, 49 KO’s) was able to clinch as often as he pleased on Saturday night in defeating former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (34-4, 27 KO’s) by a 10th round TKO while fighting in front of a large pro-Klitschko German crowd at the Commerzbank-Arena, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany. Averaging around 10 clinches per round, Wladimir did a beautiful job of keeping Peter tied up and unable to throw his massive power shots. I haven’t seen clinching display like this since Wladimir’s first victory over Peter give years ago. That ugly display of clinching was a life saver for Wladimir in this fight.

The referee stood idly by, letting Klitschko clinch as often as he pleased without taking points off for the excessive holding. Peter, who at 6’1” couldn’t exactly fight 6’6” Wladimir from the outside due to his limited reach, was then limited to landing an occasional wild shot. Peter could have done so much more had he let his hands go while he had Wladimir draped all over him during the many times that Peter was clinches by the giant Ukrainian.

However, Peter was too much of a nice guy and just accepted the numerous clinches without complaint without tearing into Wladimir. If this was Corrie Sanders, he would have cleaned Wladimir’s clock with short left hands every time Wladimir elected to clinch. This is essentially what happened in Wladimir’s knockout loss to Sanders in 2003. Wladimir tried to clinch Sanders and the South African was having none of it and immediately belted Wladimir with a short right hand while Wladimir at close range. The punch knocked Wladimir and almost unconscious.

Peter should have followed Sander’s blue print and unloaded on Wladimir each time he was grabbed by him. Peter didn’t and deserved to lose the fight. If the referee is going to allow a fighter to get away with bending the rules, then it’s necessary for one to fight back as best as you can. In this case, Peter wouldn’t have been doing anything out of bounds had he worked while Wladimir was holding onto him.

The referee told Peter countless times that his hands were free, and practically begged Peter to throw punches while he was being clinched. It’s too bad because this is something that Peter should have trained for before the fight. He looked like he wasn’t expecting Wladimir to clinch him at all, because he had no answer for the constant clinching from him.

As for the stoppage in the 10th round, Peter was more tired than hurt. His right eye was almost closed from Wladimir’s jabs and he just didn’t have the energy to fight hard anymore. Wladimir then opened up with a flurry of shots with most of them missing. However, enough of them connected for Peter to be in trouble.

Peter went down more from having been bumped by the referee, who had jumped in to stop Wladimir from punching, then from Wladimir’s shots. The fight was stopped immediately and thus Peter never even got the chance to try and get up from the knockdown.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with Wladmir’s win. If the referee had been doing his job and no allowing the clinching, the fight would have been much different. And if Peter had fought Wladimir while being held onto, I think Peter would have knocked Wladimir out. Peter needs to work on this flaw in his game because his future opponents will probably look at this fight and try to do the same thing against him by clinching 10+ times per round to keep Peter from throwing his shots.

I think Wladimir will be knocked out when he fights WBA heavyweight champion David Haye because he knows how to fight in close and he doesn’t allow his opponents to clinch him without making them pay. Haye would have knocked Wladimir out last Saturday night and he’s lucky he wasn’t fight him instead of Peter.



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