Wladimir Klitschko vs. Alex Leapai airs on ESPN on 4/26 at 5 pm ET

By Boxing News - 04/16/2014 - Comments

By Allan Fox: ESPN will be televising the April 26th title defense by IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) against Alex Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO’s) at 5 pm ET from the Koenig Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, according to Dan Rafael. HBO won’t be televising the fight. They do pick up some of Wladimir’s fights, but mostly they focus more on his bigger fights rather than the ones that figure to be mismatches like his April 26th defense against Leapai will likely be.

Rafael said this on his twitter: “Great news! ESPN (the main big daddy network) airs Wladimir Klitschko’s 4/26 heavyweight title defense vs Leapai live at 5 pm ET! #boxing.”

Provided that Wladimir gets past the 34-year-old Leapai this month, Wladimir will then be facing a tough test in facing his IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev later this year. The 6’4 1/2″ Pulev is unbeaten and he has the skills to make it a really tough fight for Wladimir. Next year, Wladimir will be facing the winner of the Dereck Chisora vs. Tyson Fury bout. Chisora and Fury will be fighting this Summer in a WBO heavyweight eliminator bout on July 26th. The winner will then be locked in as Wladimir’s mandatory challenger.

There’s also a possibility that Wladimir could fight a unification bout against the WBC heavyweight champion, once the smoke clears between Chris Arreola, Bermane Stiverne and Deontay Wilder bouts. Arreola and Stiverne will be fighting for the vacant WBC heavyweight title next May, and the winner of that fight will then be required to fight Deontay Wilder in their first defense. Wladimir would then be looking to fight the winner of that fight in a unification bout, and that’s if Wladimir beats Leapai, Pulev and the Chisora-Fury winner.

Leapai, 6’0″, is in a “Rocky” type situation where he’s fighting someone way above his class on April 26th against Wladimir, and for him to win this fight, he’s going to need to land a lucky shot on Wladimir’s chin and hope he can hurt him badly enough to finish him off with a flurry of big shots.



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