(Photo credit: Michael Eaton Sterling/KMG) By Dan Ambrose: IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (56-3, 49 KO’s) is having to work twice as hard to interest boxing fans in his fight this Saturday night against the smallish 39-year-old Jean Marc Mormeck (36-4, 22 KO’s). Boxing fans have been largely turned off toward’s Wladimir choice of opponent since the fight was first announced a couple of months ago.

Wladimir says the other heavyweight contenders either turned him down or weren’t available and thus forced him to settle for Mormeck.

At today’s press conference Wladimir showed his desperation to draw interest in his mismatch on Saturday, saying according to the BILD “It is incredibly difficult to adjust to such a little fighter. Mormeck is similar to Mike Tyson, just that he is still faster.”

It’s really getting ridiculous how far Wladimir is having to go to get people to take notice of this fight. Mormeck isn’t a real talkative type like Wladimir’s last opponent former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, so Wladimir is having to take things into his own hands by generating the interesting sound bites. I just wish he could come up with something a little more palatable than comparing Mormeck favorably to Tyson. You know things are getting bad when Wladimir is comparing a limited fighter like Mormeck favorably to Tyson. I just hope Wladimir doesn’t decide to take it to the next level by saying that Mormeck hits harder than Tyson. It would be about the same thing as what he already said, because Mormeck is nowhere near as fast as Tyson. Mormeck is more closer to Eddie Chambers in hand speed than Tyson.

Wladimir will be facing Mormeck at the ESPRIT arena, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Wladimir probably would have done better had he selected someone like Alexander Dimitrenko, Denis Boytsov, Chris Arreola, Robert Helenius, Ruslan Chagaev, Eddie Chambers, Tyson Fury, David Price, Kubrat Pulev or Bermane Stiverne to fight instead of Mormeck.