By Joe Met: In April this year Wladimir Klitschko makes his 10th defence of his IBF and WBO world titles against unbeaten British and Commonwealth champion Dereck Chisora, also up for grabs will be the Ring Magazine belt, in what for me is a very intriguing match up, and when making a prediction there are many factors to take into account.

At the moment Wladimir is widely considered the best heavyweight in the world. Unbeaten in the past 7 years, and a title holder for the past 5, he is also currently ranked 8th in the Ring Magazines top ten P4P list. Only one of his previous 10 defences have gone the distance, and that was a unanimous points decision against Sultan Ibragimov 3 years ago.

Many critics feel that Wladimir’s fighting style lacks excitement, that he is over-cautious in his approach, afraid to get tagged, and is most comfortable keeping things at arms length as much as possible. I would agree with this, but what I would also add is that a fighter is really ever only as good as his opposition is making him look. What I mean is that the reason we don’t see Wladimir going life and death in the middle of the ring with his opponents is because none of his opponents ever seem able to impose their will on him and drag him into the trenches.

The reason for that is his excellent jab. Probably one of the best jabs in the buisiness, and as any professional boxer or coach worth his salt will tell you, if you don’t have a jab, you don’t have much of a game. The key to undoing Wladimir’s game is to get inside that jab and rough him up in the inside with hooks to the body and short uppercuts from inside the clinch. we have all seen how he panics a bit and starts to clinch when fighters try to get inside those long arms and take the reach advantage out of the equation, and once inside if you land on his chin, well, there’s every chance he could go down.
At 6’6” Klitschko will have a 5inch height advantage over Chisora, he will also have a 7inch reach advantage. Both fighters will come in at around the 245-250lb mark, and Wladimir will of course have the advantage of the home crowd having not fought outside of Germany since the Ibragimov bout.

Chisora is in a win-win situation with this fight really, if there was ever a fighter with absolutely nothing to lose, then it would be Chisora in this fight. All things considered, the odds are stacked so heavily against him that all he has to do is try to survive in there with Klitschko and he will come out of this looking pretty good, but I don’t think that’s Dereck’s style. I think he will go in there and genuinely try to knock Wladimir out, and I don’t think he will be fazed at all by the huge crowd of Klitschko fans, I don’t even think he will be over-awed by the occasion of his first world title fight against a long established world champion, I think he will go in there with one thing on his mind……winning!

Chisora has very little experience, only 14 fights into his professional career and he has never fought outside of Britain before. His most notable win was winning the British title against a faded and overweight Danny Williams, knocking Williams out in the second round. Non of Chisora’s last four fights have gone the distance and he seems to have been growing in confidence with every fight. He has good movement too, especially with his head, bobbing and weaving as he comes in making him hard to hit and difficult to keep away, it’s a good style to have when fighting a jabber like Klitschko, and with Dereck’s power Wladimir could be in real trouble if he starts to flap about in there and let the pressure get to him. The key for Dereck is to just be relentless and to keep Klitschko unsettled, to just keep coming at him and throwing shots from close in so that Wladimir can‘t keep dropping into the clinch, tying him up and wieghing him down as he likes to do.

Stamina and conditioning will be everything in this fight. We all know that Klitschko is always in fantastic condition, he really is like a thoroughbred racehorse and I hope that Chisora has been putting in the time in the gym, he really will need to be in the best shape of his life if he is to stand a chance here. If he gets stuck on the end of the famous Klitschko jab early on in the fight he may well get dominated and demoralized like many other fighters have in the past and just concede to a 10 round heavy beating and late stoppage in the 11th or 12th..

I would love to see an upset in this fight, not because I have anything particularly against the Klitschko’s, they are great technicians, true champions and deserve all the respect in the world. I just think it’s time for a change and I think someone like Chisora, whether he wins this fight or not, could certainly bring some much needed excitement, ruffle a few feathers, and upset a few people around the heavyweight division. Good luck Dereck. Your going to need it!