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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Now that’s he’s run his heavyweight title defense total to 17 (a heady consecutive height only reached by Hall of Famers named Louis and Holmes) it’s high time for Wladimir Klitschko to change his tack.
His violent Saturday erasure of unbeaten No. 1 challenger Kubrat Pulev has seemingly gotten the last of the perpetual contrarians into the boat – as evidenced by “we knew it all along” gushing on premium cable and social media – so why not dispense with the rote assembly line dismissal of anonymous Eastern European heavy bags and move on to matches that might actually move the interest needles?
Fortunately for the still-prime 38-year-old, some options exist amid the flotsam.
Though I’m sure Luis Ortiz would be a fine drug-free foil as a WBA No. 1 foe and top WBO man Dereck Chisora would do no worse than 10-2, 10-2, 9-1-2 blowout loss he suffered to big brother Vitali in 2012, there are at least a small handful of other directions in which the four-belt champ can go to step away from the clinical automaton character he’s played so well for the last eight-plus years.
Toward that end, may I first suggest one Shannon Briggs?
Yes, I went there.
But no, I’m not actually claiming the 42-year-old New Yorker has legitimately earned a shot. [Click Here To Read More]
His violent Saturday erasure of unbeaten No. 1 challenger Kubrat Pulev has seemingly gotten the last of the perpetual contrarians into the boat – as evidenced by “we knew it all along” gushing on premium cable and social media – so why not dispense with the rote assembly line dismissal of anonymous Eastern European heavy bags and move on to matches that might actually move the interest needles?
Fortunately for the still-prime 38-year-old, some options exist amid the flotsam.
Though I’m sure Luis Ortiz would be a fine drug-free foil as a WBA No. 1 foe and top WBO man Dereck Chisora would do no worse than 10-2, 10-2, 9-1-2 blowout loss he suffered to big brother Vitali in 2012, there are at least a small handful of other directions in which the four-belt champ can go to step away from the clinical automaton character he’s played so well for the last eight-plus years.
Toward that end, may I first suggest one Shannon Briggs?
Yes, I went there.
But no, I’m not actually claiming the 42-year-old New Yorker has legitimately earned a shot. [Click Here To Read More]
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