By Dave Lahr: It’s too bad that WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (40-2, 38 KO’s) was born with such defective skin around his eyes. I guess if it’s not one things it another. I suppose he’s lucky he’s 6’7″, because the extra height has obviously disguised his weak skin around his eyes and saved him from multiple stoppage losses. Some fighters are known as bleeders due their paper thin skin. I see Klitscho as one of them. On Saturday night, Shannon Briggs (51-5-1, 45 Ko’s) is going to be unloading heavy artillery on Vitali’s face and it’s going to be interesting to watch the quick transformation that Klitschko’s face undergoes with every hard punch that Briggs lands.

I see it like the movie “The Incredible Melting Man.” Vitali’s eyes are going to immediately start to cut and bleed after a round or two of Briggs landing shots. Once his eyes are torn up, there will probably be additional cuts to Vitali’s cheeks, lips and eyebrows. If you saw his fight with Lennox Lewis in 2003, Klitschko looked like a big torn up fish. His mouth was badly torn from an uppercut from Lewis, and both eyes were bleeding badly. One of the eyes had a deep cut that went all the way to the bone. Part of Vitali’s skull was exposed in that fight. And thing of it was, Lewis really land all that many punches. It just seemed like every he would land a shot, a new tear in Vitali face would materialize.

Say what you want about Briggs having an asthma problem, but the guy can punch. Whatever he hits on Vitali’s face, you can count on cuts to open. The fight is going to have a much different appearance once Vitali is bleeding all over creation. He’s going to be blinking a lot, turning his head so that his good eye can see Briggs. This will just lead to Briggs cutting the good eye with one of his monster shots. Pretty soon Vitali is going to have a sea of blood dripping down on his face, and the English referee is going to have to make a decision whether to stop it or let the fight continue.