by David P. Greisman (photo by Pavel Terekhov)
How many times have I written this column?
How many times have we seen Wladimir Klitschko be so good at making his opponent look so bad?
How many times have we talked about how Klitschko being so good at making his opponent look so bad is what keeps him from being seen as great?
We expect our greats to have flash and panache. Wladimir Klitschko wins with simplicity, using his considerable size and considerable smarts to accentuate his strengths and exploit his opponents’ weaknesses.
Klitschko has gone from being relegated to the scrap yard to regaining the spotlight. He has won 12 straight, nine by knockout. Those dozen victories have come against men with a combined record of 345 wins, 18 losses and 10 draws. He has beaten six former world titlists and captured two of the four major sanctioning body belts.
Most of those victories have looked the same. Klitschko keeps his opponent at a distance with jabs, occasionally dropping a sledgehammer of a right hand or tossing in a left hook. If his opponent gets too close, he either takes a quick step backward, or he ties them up and leans his weight over them, tiring them out and keeping them from testing his chin. He breaks their spirit. If they don’t get stopped due to the accumulation of punishment, they get knocked out.
It is not pleasing. It does not need to be. Klitschko has found his formula, adding safety, subtracting risks and coming out with the win. His opponents either lack size or power – or perhaps there’s just not been anyone good enough to beat him.
Or they’re good enough, and he just makes them look bad.
Let’s flash back to less than memorable nights:
November 2006: Calvin Brock landed 77 of 280 punches in seven rounds against Klitschko, a 28 percent connect rate. Klitschko, meanwhile, was 90 of 305, with a majority of those punches being jabs – 218 thrown, 62 landed. The final blows: a left hook, a straight right, a jab and a short straight right.
“Brock couldn’t adjust to Klitschko’s height and reach and … was standing still in front of Klitschko’s stiff jab and powerful straight right,” I wrote at the time, describing the fight as consisting of “rounds of ineffective aggression by both.”
March 2007: Ray Austin never saw a right hand during his one-and-a-half rounds with Klitschko. That’s because Klitschko never threw one. A good lead left hook and three lesser ones finished Austin.
July 2007: Lamon Brewster landed 42 punches in six rounds, including just 28 power shots. Klitschko landed 199 of 434 punches, with jabs constituting 346 thrown, 162 landed. Brewster retired in his corner because he was eating nearly half of what Klitschko threw.
“An opening spurt aside, Brewster came out flat and flat-footed, not fleet, but fleeting,” I wrote. “With Brewster no longer willing to dig deep and take three or four punches to land one, the man known as ‘Relentless’ was instead as docile as a lamb.”
February 2008: Sultan Ibragimov lasted the distance against Klitschko, and that’s about all he did. Ibragimov went 97 of 316. Klitschko went 148 of 348, throwing one power shot in each of the first three rounds and not landing any of those. He was 40 of 103 with power punches and 108 of 245 with jabs.
July 2008: Tony Thompson landed more punches on Klitschko than anyone before – 150 landed out of 408 thrown. For the first time in ages, Klitschko was forced to throw more power punches than jabs. He landed 85 power shots and 36 jabs, knocking Thompson out with a single right hand.
“The action became plodding, two grizzly bears holding, wrestling and swatting at each other with lumbering limbs,” I wrote.
December 2008: Klitschko returned to old form, landing 134 jabs against Hasim Rahman out of 178 total landed punches. Rahman landed a total of 30 punches over a little bit more than six rounds, including just one punch – a jab – in the sixth. The fight got stopped less than a minute into round seven.
Against Ruslan Chagaev last June: “One would be hard pressed to find a single memorable punch Chagaev landed on Klitschko. There was only one memorable punch Klitschko landed on Chagaev.”
And so we come to Klitschko’s bout this past Saturday against Eddie Chambers. How many times have I written this column?
Chambers tried to be different.
He tried moving.
He didn’t let Klitschko get away with leaving his left arm out, sending retaliatory left hooks to Klitschko’s forearm.
And he didn’t let Klitschko lean his weight on him – Chambers responded by lifting Klitschko into the air in the first round, then picking him up and dropping him to the canvas in the second.
But for the remainder of the fight, it was really Klitschko doing the heavy lifting.
When Chambers moved, Klitschko cut him off. Chambers couldn’t get close enough to land much of consequence. He didn’t have enough power to get Klitschko’s respect either. He often stood still, sometimes even against the ropes, relying on his high guard for defense.
Klitschko relief often, as usual, on his left hand, pounding his jab into and between Chambers’ arms. Right hands followed – one, in the second round, sent Chambers crab walking backwards.
During rounds, Chambers’ corner yelled for him to move his head, to avoid punishment. Between rounds, his corner yelled at him to move his hands, to dish punishment out.
After the fourth: “You gotta work. You can’t just give this guy rounds, man.” After the fifth: “You gotta do your thing. Stop telling me ‘Okay,” and do it.” After the sixth: “You gotta fight this motherfucker. What is wrong with you, man?”
Klitschko’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, knew what was going on over on the opposite side of the ring. “His corner is going crazy,” Steward said to Klitschko after the seventh. “You’re not the big dummy they thought.”
No, Klitschko is deceptively difficult. He doesn’t have much variety. But what he does have is more than enough.
More than enough to win. But to entertain?
That matters, too. And so Steward began to get on Klitschko.
“You’re not punching enough,” Steward said after the 10th round. “This is another Ibragimov. You’ve got to punch. Just let them go.”
Steward had issued a similar warning to Klitschko during the Ibragimov fight. Fans prefer exciting fights. Klitschko isn’t going to give fans a slugfest, but he can give them a knockout. A memorable ending can trump the forgettable moments that preceded it.
“Your volume of punches is just too low,” Steward said just before the 12th round. “He’s going to run. You don’t need to have another bullshit decision.”
Klitschko heard his trainer clearly. “Relax,” Klitschko said. “I will try.”
Klitschko showed more intensity in the final stanza. Just as time was going to run out, he came forward with a left hook. Chambers pulled his gloves back. The shot landed on Chambers’ temple. He fell backward, then to the left. Klitschko threw a right as Chambers went down. It wasn’t necessary. He was already out. The referee stopped counting with five seconds to go.
Twelve fights back, there were more questions about Wladimir Klitschko than there were answers. He’s answered some – Can he rebuild? Can he succeed? Can he overcome his stamina and confidence issues?
There are other questions that remain – Can he take a true heavyweight shot? Can he handle a fast, strong pressure fighter?
But are there fighters who can ask those questions of Klitschko? There are just as many questions about his opponents and whether they will ever provide Klitschko with the challenge that will make him be seen as great.
The 10 Count
1. Tweet of the Week: “Eddie Chambers and Clottey should go on survivor, im sure they would win easy” – @MarkdeMori, an Australian heavyweight who is 16-1-2 with 14 knockouts.
2. The difference between watching Eddie Chambers (against Wladimir Klitschko) and watching Joshua Clottey (against Manny Pacquiao) is that we knew Clottey could’ve done more than he was doing, that he was not only the bigger and stronger man, but that he could hit Pacquiao and possibly even hurt him if he would have just let his hands go.
Chambers could’ve tried more, but would anything have worked? Doubtful.
3. We can say the reverse when noting the difference between watching Pacquiao (against Clottey) and watching Klitschko (against Chambers).
Pacquiao, the undersized but faster fighter, did everything he could. Clottey was able to block or dodge nearly 1,000 of Pacquiao’s shots, but he never opened up with offense enough to allow Pacquiao to do anything but rack up a clear decision victory.
Klitschko, bigger, stronger and better, had the ability the whole fight to dispose of Chambers. Although Chambers seemed intent on survival, he remained in Klitschko’s range, and Klitschko was able to get past or through Chambers’ guard.
Emanuel Steward pleaded with Klitschko to knock Chambers out – for managerial purposes more than anything else. It is what Klitschko, before the 12th round, promised Steward he would do. And it is a promise he fulfilled.
It could’ve been done far earlier if Klitschko didn’t seem so content at just minimizing his opponent and winning in a dominant but largely unfulfilling manner.
4. Can anyone really blame HBO for not buying Klitschko-Chambers?
5. Klitschko remains a sports icon in Europe. Reports had some 51,000 people attending his bout with Chambers in the German city of Dusseldorf.
This comes a week after 50,994 saw Pacquiao-Clottey at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.
That’s more than 100,000 people for two fights in 2010. Compare that to the 2001 Montreal Expos, who had 619,451 people for 81 games – 7,647 per game.
6. Superstardom doesn’t necessarily cross platforms. Sure, Mike Tyson said he could sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating. But could Manny Pacquiao put fannies in seats for a concert?
Nope. Not in Hawaii, anyway.
The “Manny Pacquiao Live in Hawaii Concert Celebration” was to have been held this past Sunday in Honolulu. But as of early last week, only 603 tickets had been sold, according to the Honolulu Advertiser.
The arena holds 8,500 people. The concert promoter needed to sell 2,500 tickets (priced from $25 to $150, with the $150 tickets including a meet-and-greet with Pacquiao) to break even, according to the article.
Pacquiao would’ve earned $100,000 for the performance.
7. Manny Pacquiao. $100,000. To sing. It’s almost criminal, isn’t it?
8. Good Idea, Bad Idea, starring Erik Morales.
Good Idea: Reminiscing in the past.
“Defeating Pacquiao is my greatest accomplishment in the ring. I remember seeing him cry after our fight,” Morales said recently, quoted in a news release.
Bad Idea: Reliving the past.
“I would love another chance at Pacquiao,” Morales said.
Morales will fight this Saturday against former lightweight beltholder Jose Alfaro on pay-per-view in what will be a welterweight bout.
9. How optimistic are the promoters behind the two upcoming independent pay-per-views – Morales-Alfaro (March 27) and Evander Holyfield-Frans Botha (April 10)?
Each will be $30. But each comes in a packed pay-per-view schedule, what with Pacquiao-Clottey earlier this month, the rematch between Roy Jones Jr. and Bernard Hopkins on April 3, and Shane Mosley vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 1.
Beyond that, March 27 will have a doubleheader on HBO, a “Super Six” bout on Showtime, not to mention a card on select Fox Sports stations. As for April 10, HBO will also have a doubleheader that night, too, and there will be another card on select Fox Sports stations.
10. Mike Tyson will take part in an Animal Planet series on pigeon racing called “Taking on Tyson.”
No punchline necessary…
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com