By Sean McDaniel We may be seeing the very best of heavyweight contender Odlanier Solis (17-0, 12 KO’s) when he takes on WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (41-2, 38 KO’s) on March 19th at the Lanxess-Arena, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The 30-year-old Solis, who is no stranger to weight problems, has been reportedly training in the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains at high altitude to help get ready for his battle against the towering 6’7″ 250 pound Klitschko, according to Dan Rafael.

Solis’ trainer Pedro Diaz says “On March 19th, we will see the best Odlanier Solis since he turned pro in 2007. We have perfect conditions here in the mountains. I have been here a couple of times with different athletes. It’s a perfect place to get in perfect shape.”

That sounds nice. However, when Solis turned pro in 2007, he weighed a fat 258 pounds, which was 58 pounds more than he weighed three years previous to that when he was a muscular Olympic Gold Medalist in the 2004 Olympics while fighting in Cuban.

The fact that Solis put on 58 pounds of flab after his amateur career ended speaks volumes about where his discipline seemed to get away from him. So by his training saying that Solis will be right back in the same kind of awful shape he was in four years ago when he first turned pro at a fat 258, doesn’t suggest that he’ll do well against the always in shape Vitali. Now if Diaz were to say that he’d get Solis in the same kind of shape he was in during the Olympics, then I’d sit up and take notice. But I’m not going to hold any value in Diaz saying Solis will get back down to his fat 258 after whittling off a meager 12 pounds or so during training camp. Solis has ballooned from the 258 to as high as 271 recently.

The fat really hurts Solis, slows him down and makes it possible for him to fight hard for only a brief spell before tiring. He’s going to need to take off all that weight if he wants to beat Vitali. I’m talking all 70 pounds of fat that Solis has put on. He needs to get down to 200 if he wants to have a chance of beating Vitali.