By William Mackay: After watching a badly out of breath WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko labor to a 12 round unanimous decision against British challenger Dereck Chisora last month, former heavyweight champion of the world Lennox Lewis said he sees vulnerability in Vitali now and thinks he’s ripe for the taking by a good challenger. Vitali injured his left shoulder in the Chisora fight and was forced to fight with only his right hand, but that doesn’t explain Vitali being so badly out of breath through many of the rounds.
Lewis said in an interview at the Sun Sport “I was saying a while ago that Vitali’s looking pretty heavy on his feet and is really relying on his size right now. Father time is definitely knocking on his door.”
Lewis figures that David Haye could have a good chance of beating Vitali right now if he could get a fight with him. Previously, Lewis thought Haye would have a great chance of beating Vitali’s brother IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July. However, Haye fought passively and took few chances in that fight in losing by a lopsided 12 round decision.
Lewis continued “Maybe he [Haye] can do it against the guy [Vitali] that doesn’t move so well. I was surprised that David didn’t get a better result against Wladimir, but like he said, he did hurt his toe.”
Lewis went on to say that he wouldn’t have stepped into the ring to fight Wladimir unless he was 100 percent for the fight. Lewis is right. Haye shouldn’t have taken the fight if he had a broken toe because that basically crippled his performance and kept him from driving off of his back foot with the power he needed in order to hurt Wladimir. Haye, of course, hasn’t helped himself by refusing to make a comeback against other fighters to show that he’s not the guy that was toyed with by Wladimir. Haye is waiting on the big payday fight with Vitali and negotiating from a position of weakness.
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