By Scott Gilfoid: After Vitali Klitschko’s huge 8th round stoppage over WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter on Saturday night, Vitali didn’t elaborate on his future plans inside the ring other than mentioning Nikolay Valuev, the WBA heavyweight champion, as a potential fight. However, Vitali’s mandatory challenger is Juan Carlos Gomez, who recently defeated Vladimir Virchis to get the number #1 spot to fight the winner of Peter vs. Vitali. As of now, Klitschko will either have to take the fight against Gomez, 35, or consider vacating the title. Gomez, a former WBC cruiserweight champion between 1998 to 2002, successfully defended his title 10 times before giving it up to move to the heavyweight division in 2002.
Since that time, Gomez’s career had stalled for the most part, after he was knocked out in the first round by Yanqui Diaz in 2004. Gomez rebounded from the defeat, beating Oliver McCall and Denis Bakhtov, among many other good fighters. However, it wasn’t until his win over Virchis that Gomez was finally in position to get a title shot. It’s unfortunate, though, that it’s probably going to be coming against a fighter as large and as skilled as the 6’7″ Klitschko. Gomez, whose style of fighting is a lot like Chris Byrd, would have done well against a slugger like Samuel Peter, as he would have used his long reach and boxing ability to keep Peter from landing his big shots.