By Eric Thomas: The World Boxing Organization gave IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) a huge gift last Wednesday by making 34-year-old #8 Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) his WBO his mandatory challenger for his WBO title rather than an arguably better heavyweight with a chance to beat him. The WBO ordered that the two sides have 30 days to negotiate the fight with a minimum bid of $1 million.
For a mandatory challenger, this is one of Wladimir’s weakest opponents, and more like an easy optional title defense than anything close to being a mandatory defense. Wladimir isn’t looking to bypass the fight for something else. He’s going to defend against Leapai next, and it’s pretty easy to see why. It’s virtually a non-risk fight for Wladimir, and another easy payday for him.
This will be Wladimir’s 12th defense of his WBO title that he won back in 2008 over Sultan Ibragimov.
Wladimir wasn’t familiar with Leapai before his recent win over previously undefeated #1 WBO Denis Boytsov last month. Wladimir said to ESPN “I’ve never heard of Alex Leapai until the fight with Boytsov. I think he did a great job to win that fight and become [the] official mandatory for [the] WBO title. I’m looking forward to the challenge from Alex.”
Leapai didn’t look that great against Boytsov last month. He appeared very, very slow on his feet and his punches were frequently very wide and there weren’t a lot of the. It was just that Boytsov stood in front of Leapai for long stretches and gave him all the chances he needed to throw his slow shots. Boytsov doesn’t look like the same fighter that he once was back in 2009. He seems to have slipped a notch for some reason. He’s no longer throwing the combinations that he did in his early 20s, and he’s just the same fighter.
It’s still unclear when the Wladimir-Leapai fight will take place and which venue. It seems likely that the fight will be staged in Germany. Wladimir’s last fight was staged in Moscow, Russia, with him beating WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin by a dull 12 round decision.
One thing that will be interesting to see with the Wladimir vs. Leapai fight will be whether the referee working the fight will allow Wladimir to clinch 10 times per round and lean on Leapai for the entire fight. Wladimir has been getting away with a lot of clinching in his fights for the last decade, and it really got out of control against Povetkin with Wladimir constantly clinching. If the referee lets him do this against Leapai without warning him or taking points off, then Leapai will have no chance at all of winning the fight. But if the referee forces Wladimir to keep stay off of Leapai and fight him in a normal fight without the excessive clinching, this could be an interesting one.
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