By Jake Donovan
With no more delays standing in the way of destiny, Wladimir Klitschko and Kubrat Pulev are finally ready for battle.
The two best heavyweights in the world collide Saturday evening in Hamburg, Germany. The bout will airlive in the United States on HBO (Saturday, 4:45 p.m. ET).
While weigh-ins are a mere formality for the heavyweight division—which has no cap—Friday's session was telling of the respect each fighter has for the other.
Klitschko (62-3, 52KOs) tipped the scales at 245.8 lb. for the 10th defense of his World lineal heavyweight championship, and 17th overall alphabet title defense. Pulev (20-0, 11KOs) came in at 246.9 lb., his lightest weight since May '12, when he came in at 245.5 lb. for his 11th round knockout of Alexander Dimitrenko in a breakthrough performance.
The heavyweight championship bout on Saturday comes with one of the longest title reigns in heavyweight title fight history. Klitschko has held at least one alphabet belt since April '06, which—when recognizing all major belts—is second only to Joe Louis, who served as heavyweight king for more than 11 years.
Klitschko has served as World lineal champion since June '09, when he stopped then-unbeaten Ruslan Chagaev in nine rounds to fill the void left behind for more than five years following Lennox Lewis' announced retirement in 2004. His most recent win came in April, stopping Alex Leapai in five rounds.
Pulev enters his first career title fight. The opportunity should have come much sooner, but the unbeaten Bulgarian had a hard time convincing his divisional peers to step in the ring with him. Tomasz Adamek and Tyson Fury both declined what would have been final title eliminators, leaving Pulev out of the ring for 11 months before defeating Tony Thompson last August to become Klitschko's mandatory title challenger.
His time since then has been spent in stay busy bouts, scoring early knockouts over subpar competition while awaiting his title opportunity.
The bout was originally due to take place in September, but postponed due to Klitschko suffering an injury during training camp.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com, as well as the Records Keeper for the Transnational Boxing Ratings Board and a member of Boxing Writers Association of America. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
