Wladimir Klitschko... the next great heavyweight?

[Thespiralgoeson]

I'm bored, so I figured I'd start this for the boxing fans here.

This is an interesting topic, because I don't think Emanuel Steward is too far off base when he says that Wladimir could, in the near future, be the next great heavyweight. I just watched Klitschko's fight with Sam Peter a couple of nights ago, and it's fascinating to see how Klitschko is making up for his obviously weak chin with sheer technical savvy.

Most people who saw that fight were probably totally unimpressed with Klitschko's victory, seeing him getting knocked down 3 times. However, if you saw Wlad's shocking loss to Corrie Sanders, you can see that he's made great strides training under Steward (It's also worth noting that the knockdowns came from illegal punches to the back of his head.) His victory wasn't pretty, but I was quite surprised that Klitschko was able to recover from Peter's immensely powerful punches; punches that would've destroyed him in the past. While the old Wladimir probably would've stayed on the canvas, the new Wladimir seemed to be able to recover quickly, and expose Peter as an inexperienced, one-dimensional fighter. Klitschko also showed stamina that he's never shown before; recovering from the blows and still being the aggressor in the later rounds.

Emanual Steward's words on Wladimir's victory:

We discussed it with Wladimir, and we feel we only did seventy percent. Wladimir can do much better, but nonetheless Wladimir won the fight and we are very happy about that, but we both feel we can do much better. Overall I’m very satisfied with Wladimir’s performance. Wladimir has so much talent and in the next fight he’ll do so much better. He realized that he answered a lot of questions, but never got hit much on the chin or in face. Mostly all of the damage came from blows to back of his head and we never complained about it. That was the only time that he was having problems in the fight, when he would get hit on the back of his head.

Steward's words how the fight will effect Wladimir's future:

I think it was a very good fight for Wladimir. It answered a lot of questions. I believe that right now him and his brother have got to be considered as the one of the best heavyweight of the world at this time. I think that Wladimir will be, by this time next year, the champion of the world. He will have one, or maybe two championship belts, and he will be on his way of establishing himself as one of the best heavyweight of the recent time - last fifteen years. He will be right there next to Lennox Lewis.

"Right there next to Lennox Lewis" is a pretty bold statement. Bold, however maybe not unrealistic. Wladimir Klitschko is one of the most technically brilliant boxers in recent history, on top of being huge (6'7 with an ungodly reach), and being a powerful puncher. If he can protect his chin like he did against Peter, I think Steward might be right about Wladimir being one of the great heavyweights of this era.

Of course, from my point of view, that is to say he could be as good as his big brother Vitali, who IMO is the class of the division right now. (If you saw him fight Lennox Lewis, then you know this guy's for real!)

Fascinating stuff!

[Arne]

Yeah, I definetely think that Wladimir can be right up there with Lewis. I've seen the Vitali-Lenox-fight and I'm right with you, Vitali was great and got robbed in my opinion...

[sike]

boxing gives me tiredhead

[Arne]

why?