By Dave Lahr: Unbeaten heavyweight contender Odlanier Solis (17-0, 12 KO’s) is looking like a new man after spending the past month in the Sierra Nevada mountains training and taking off weight for his March 19th fight against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (41-2, 38 KO’s) at the Lanxess-Arena, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. I’m not a great judge of weights, but I’d guess from looking at Solis’ new physique, he looks to have trimmed off at least 30 pounds during this training camp.
Solis is starting to look like his old self from his amateur days when he won a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics for Cuba. That’s not good if you’re a Vitali fan, because an in shape Solis is someone that can beat Vitali and take away his dream of holding down all of the world heavyweight titles along with his younger brother WBC/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
The two of them have been holding on hoping they can get WBA heavyweight champion David Haye to fight one of them so that they can try and capture the last remaining world championship belt. The problem with that is that Haye has been busy fighting other guys and Vitali has run out of soft opposition and has finally been forced to fight a live opponent in 30-year-old Solis. This is a fight where Vitali has a great chance of losing, because Solis is younger, faster and a much better fighter than Vitali. Those are a lot of things that Solis will have in his favor on March 19th. All Vitali will have going for him is his 6’7″ height, but that won’t mean anything if he can’t land his shots and is too slow to react to Solis’ fast shots.
The argument against Solis winning in the past was his weight. He was considered too fat to beat Vitali. But you can’t make that argument anymore because Solis has lost most of the fat that he’s put on since turning pro and is looking muscular and slender. This is going to be a toss-up fight now because with Solis looking good, Vitali is going to be in deep trouble.
Comments are closed.