(Photo: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Eric Thomas: IBO cruiserweight champion Antonio Tarver (29-6-1, 20 KO’s) wanted to put in an especially impressive performance last Saturday night in his title defense against unbeaten Lateef Kayode (18-0-1, 14 KO’s), as the 43-year-old Tarver was hoping that a victory would be a springboard for a fight against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Unfortunately for Tarver, things didn’t work out like he’d planned. First of all, Tarver came into the Kayode fight looking fat around the middle. The excess weight seemed to make it difficult for Tarver to bend at the waist because he seemed as if he lost all the flexibility in his spine from the waist up. Tarver quickly fell behind in the fight because he couldn’t or wouldn’t let his hands go.

Although Tarver did come on in the second half of the fight, he still looked awful, and barely better than a very average Kayode. Tarver made Kayode look good, which was hard to do because he seems like such a flawed fighter. Tarver fought well enough to get a draw, and he should consider himself lucky to have gotten that. After the fight, Tarver talked as if he had put in a dominating performance, saying “I beat him in every facet of the game.”

That’s not what I saw. Tarver looked like an overweight fighter struggling with a mediocre cruiserweight, one that would likely get destroyed if he were to fight guys like Marco Huck, Ola Afolabi and Denis Lebedev.

Tarver still wants the Wladimir fight, but instead of looking to face Kayode again to prove that the draw was just a fluke thing, Tarver wants to move on and face Huck and some of the other cruiserweights. He sees himself taking one more fight at cruiserweight before moving up in weight. I think even if Tarver does move up in weight, he won’t get the Wladimir fight unless he faces Kayode again and really improves his performance from the last fight. Even then, I have doubts he’ll be able to get the Klitschko fight that he wants.