Originally Posted by
amat
Not in terms of who’s the better fighter because when you are dealing with fantasy matchups, that tends to get a bit ugly and gray but as far as what you are seeing when you see Wlad in the ring, you’re getting a poor man’s Lennox Lewis. It’s all because of Emmanuel Steward too, who with as great of a trainer as he is, has gone on what seems to be a personal quest to make boxing as boring as it can possibly be. Or maybe that’s a misconception but it seems to me that Steward has taken everything that worked with Lennox, good or bad, multiplied it by two and added an extra dose of caution.
I just watched the fight with Ibragimov and it was almost painful. Left hand, left hand, left hand, rinse and repeat. Lewis did that to an extent in that he used the jab a lot and since he was a big guy it really exaggerated the size advantage he had over his opponents. But even though he was very much a balanced, control fighter he was a guy who would at least take some of the necessary risks to not make you forget that you were watching a fight and not a chess match.
Wlad Klitschko does nothing in the ring that is going to put him in any risk at all. He’s gone with the same formula Lewis won with, that’s to ride the jab and a big frame to the title but there has got to be something else. The right hand of Wladimir Klitschko is non-existant. I don’t want to hear that Ibragimov has a tricky style that makes the right hand to much of a risk, because even Steward said to Klitschko that the right hand has got to come in somewhere so that the arena didn’t revolt. The right hand never came.
Not only does he not throw the right hand but Wladimir won’t work at a distance he isn’t comfortable at. That’s not a problem in itself as that is the case with most boxers but Wladimir deals with it differently. He holds. A lot. That is the root of the problem. There is nothing more boring then a one dimensional fight and when Wlad goes out that’s what you get. You can’t have a heavyweight champion who doesn’t fight on the inside and Wlad flat out just does not throw punches when he has to bend his arms a bit. It’s annoying. Beyond annoying.
Jermain Taylor did the same thing under Steward’s direction. Lewis was beat up a lot in the press because he could keep a guy outside all night with a jab and literally just beat the will out of people. But if he was tested on the inside he could go too. Watch the second Rahman fight and it’s pretty clear that there was some fight there from Lewis beyond that controlling style. Wladimir has that same controlling style but doesn’t have that second dimension. Klitschko fans like to do a lot of talking about the injustices they were done against Sam Peter but look at it through a different lens. What more could Peter have done other then hit Wlad in the head? When Klitschko’s holding didn’t work he would just completely turn away from the fight on the inside.
I can see how a lot of people can easily get behind Klitschko because he is a monster and when he has an opponent at the end of his jab he is pretty much unbeatable but his handling of fighters when they get close is beyond ridiculous. It’s nice to be cerebral and it’s nice to lampoon your chess playing as a testament to the strategic nature of his fighting style but Klitschko is getting by on holding, dominating by holding. Something has got to be done. He controls range by holding just as much as he does with the jab and it’s not fair. Hopefully his next opponent, whoever that is, makes a case about this before the fight to put the referee on notice.
Until then, watching Wlad is just like watching a poor man’s Lennox Lewis. He fights great and makes use of distance very well with a gaudy left hand but he doesn’t take any risks and he grabs hold of guys who get a little to close for comfort.
Hopefully this improves, but as long as he is allowed to win the way he does, it won’t. That is all.
Bookmarks