By Dave Lahr: In looking at last Saturday’s bout between IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and challenger Samuel Peter, I couldn’t help but notice that Wladimir’s trainer Emanuel Steward was practically begging Wladimir to stop clinching Peter after the 9th round. It’s too bad that Steward had to wait so long to get on Wladimir’s case, because Wladimir had been clinching after almost every punch since first round of the fight.

All that clinching really did a great job of gumming up the fight and making it hard for Peter to throw punches, because of the way that Wladimir was grabbing him all the time and leaning on him. Take away the clinching, and Wladimir would have been like a boat without a paddle, floundering at high sea.
Another thing I noticed is that Wladimir had to wait until his trainer Steward told him to go after Peter before he did anything.

You could see that Peter was half dead from having to support all that weight of Wladimir’s 245 pound body every time he would grab Peter in one of his many clinches every round. Peter looked tuckered out by the 6th round from having to hold Wladimir up during every clinch. Wladimir should have opened up on him earlier in the fight instead of just hunting and pecking away with jabs all night long. Why is that Steward needs to tell Wladimir go after his opponents? What’s up with that?

I think Wladimir doesn’t have the killer instinct. It’s missing until Steward jumps his case and gives Wladimir a good tongue lashing. Instead of just nodding and agreeing with Steward, Wladimir argues with him sometime, as if he knows what’s going on. If Steward is telling Wladimir that he’s screwing up, he should accept it as gospel instead of giving Steward a little lip. We need a little more discipline here. I think Steward needs to teach Wladimir how to be aggressive like he used to be.

Then have him go and take on someone like WBA heavyweight champion David Haye or Peter without clinching. Id’ like to see that, but I’m not holding my breath on that happening any time soon. Without clinching, Wladimir would be getting hit a heck of a lot more and with his fragile chin, we might seeing him get knocked cold on a regular basis. But it’s better that then seeing him holding all the time. I just wish Jay Nady was working the Klitschko-Peter fight, because he doesn’t go for fighters that clinch. He’d have Wladimir fighting or else he’d likely be losing all kinds of points left and right.