By Eric Thomas: This Saturday’s fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 51 KO’s) and WBA champ Alexander Povetkin (26-0, 18 KO’s) may be seen an exciting bout for European boxing fans, but it’s still considered a mismatch by most people.
That’s not surprising because Povetkin is a lot smaller than Wladimir, much slower, and not in his class in the power department. Wladimir and Povetkin will be mixing it up at the Olimpiyskiy, in Moscow, Russia. It’s not really an ideal venue because it doesn’t seat as many fans as what Wladimir normally fights in front of in Germany.
In a poll at RingTV, 3000 fans voted with 58.6% picking Wladimir to win by a stoppage and 28.2% selecting him to win by a decision. Just 9% of the fans picked Povetkin to beat Wladimir.
This is about the same as Wladimir’s other fights against weak opposition like Francesco Pianeta, Jean Mar Mormeck and Mariusz Wach in the past.
Povetkin didn’t look confident at the open workout with the media. Wladimir and his trainer Johnathon Banks were in attendance to watch Povetkin go through his paces with his physical trainer, and Povetkin looked like he was doing many of the exercises for the first time.
It was strange to watch because he looked nervous and out of sorts with the different things his trainer was having him do in the ring.
Povetkin is going to have some serious problems trying to get close enough to Wladimir to land his punches on Saturday. Povetkin is giving up a half a foot in reach, and like I said, he’s not the quickest fighter that you’ll ever see.
If Povetkin has lightning fast hands speed like a Mike Tyson, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot that he was giving away so much height and reach in this fight, but he’s not blessed in either of those areas.
Wladimir has the faster hands to go along with his big size advantage. When Povetkin does try and get close, he’s going to get wrapped up in a clinch to keep him from connecting with many of his shots, if any. Wladimir has it down to the science with his ability to control the fight on the outside with his jabs.
Like a lot of taller fighters, Wladimir doesn’t let his opponents get inside on him without him moving away of grabbing them. That’s going to out Povetkin in the situation where he’ll have to make every punch count, and he’ll be forced to keep coming back at Wladimir quickly each time the referee breaks the action after a clinch by Wladimir.
The Klitschko-Povetkin fight will be televised by HBO as part of a split site double-header with Miguel Cotto facing Delvin Rodriguez at the Amway Center, in Orlando, Florida. HBO will also be televising a lightweight fight between unbeaten Terence Crawford facing the undefeated Russian Andrey Klimov.
These are three good fights and it’s definitely going to be an excellent event for fans to see. However, All three of the fights will very likely be pretty one-sided, but it’s still going to be exciting because the fights have a a high chance to end by knockout.
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