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IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko was in action last night at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany and continued his hold on boxing’s glamour division with a seventh round stoppage of former WBC, IBF and IBO champion Hasim Rahman.
Klitschko began controlling the pace of the bout immediately by establishing his accurate, heavy jab and showed good footwork to negate the efforts of Rahman to jab his way inside.
Big Wlad missed his first few right hands but one got in on Rahman behind a jab and the 253 pound American was pushed back several feet by its force. Klitschko closed out the round with a hard left hook that had the challenger holding on.
Rahman came out more aggressive in the second until he lost a battle of the right hands less than a minute into the frame. For the rest of the round, Rahman looked to keep Klitschko off with a few well-placed jabs but mostly focused on defense and working the body during clinches.
Near the end of the round, Klitschko danced away from a Rahman overhand right before coming back with another crisp straight right on the back end of a jab that rocked the challenger.
But Rahman refused to give ground and even cracked the champion with a good left hook when Klitschko tried another right. The American finished the round with a good right to the body but was still behind two rounds to none in the contest.
The distance close between the two fighters at the start of the third and Klitschko harried Rahman with the jab as the challenger waited in vain for his adversary to make a mistake.
Klitschko stepped things up and put Rahman on the ropes for the first time in the bout, trying to open up the former world champion’s guard with a pecking jab and the occasional right hand that got through.
Rahman’s decision to stay on the ropes and look for an opening proved to be a mistake as he continued to accumulate punishment from Klitschko’s laser-like jab and increasingly hard right hands.
As Klitschko got closer and launched another jab, right hand combination that struck the target, Rahman scored with a right hand that didn’t hurt the big Ukrainian but made him more cautious, gaining Rahman some much needed breathing room.
Rahman finally came off the ropes during the last minute but again his efforts to hit Klitschko proved fruitless due to the champion’s stellar footwork. By round’s end, Klitschko had again gained control of the bout behind the jab and a hard left hook that got through.
The fourth began with Klitschko working the jab and Rahman going to the chest in an attempt to disrupt the champion’s flow. The rest of the frame was a one-sided jabfest with a few left hooks from Klitschko with Rahman able to only reply with sporadic jabs and attacks to the body until “The Rock” stepped it up during the last ten seconds and got in a few short punches before the bell.
Klitschko started the fifth with a bang, ramming home two quick hooks and right. The champion won the ensuing mid-ring battle of the jabs until he let loose the right again and belted Rahman a few times.
Rahman tried a late rally during the last 30 seconds but it died when he could only land one right to the body. The fifth came to a close with Rahman catching a hard right behind the ear when he walked away from Klitschko during the last seconds.
The sixth opened with Rahman looking lethargic, perhaps from the right at the end of the previous round, and Klitschko soon took advantage by driving the challenger to the canvas with three left hooks and a right hand.
A dejected Rahman sat on the canvas before rising at the last moment to beat the count but he was soon on the ropes and under pressure as Klitschko was throwing with both hands in a measured effort to finish matters.
Rahman broke up the assault by clinching and then spent the rest of the round on the ropes, alternately dodging blows and getting hit by them as Klitschko cautiously looked for openings.
Rahman tried one big right that Klitschko danced away from but again it bought the American a bit of respect as he was able to get off the ropes. Rahman was showing the damage from all those jabs and the heavy right hands but he survived Klitschko’s last second assault as the sixth came to a close.
The seventh saw Rahman again kept at the end of the jab but Klitschko began to ramp up the left hooks before hitting paydirt with a big right, left hook combination that sent Rahman reeling to the ropes.
Klitschko got in another jab that had Rahman on shaky legs but then a heavy left hook had the challenger in bad shape. Klitschko immediately kicked off a two-handed barrage that brought referee Tony Weeks leaping in to call off the contest at 0:44 of the round.
Rahman showed a granite chin and big heart during the contest but was clearly outgunned by the bigger, faster and younger Klitschko, who continues to look the top man in the division.
On the undercard, American light middle Cornelius Brundage, 29-4 (17), knocked out previously undefeated former European Champion Zaurbek Baysangurov, 19-1 (14), of Russia in the fifth frame of a scheduled twelve.
