#1 IBF Kubrat Pulev (20-0, 11 KOs) has done a good job of staying unbeaten enough to get a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (62-2, 52 KOs) on September 6th at the O2 World Arena, Altona, in Hamburg, Germany.
Without any punching power to speak of, Pulev is ready at a huge disadvantage against the 6’6” Wladimir in this fight. Up until now, Pulev has been little more than a tall jabbing machine. He gets by with his superb jab and his sound defensive skills.
With his jab, long reach, and his retreating style of fighting, he’s been able to beat everyone that his promoters at Sauerland Events have put in front of him thus far during his career. Sauerland has done a good job of being strategic with their match-making.
Instead of putting Pulev in against guys with a good chance of beating him like Tyson Fury, Dereck Chisora, Bryant Jennings, Chris Arreola, Alexander Povetkin, Carlos Takam and Deontay Wilder, they’ve instead matched him against guys like Tony Thompson, Alexander Dimitrenko, Michael Sprott, Alexander Ustinov and Derric Rossy.
Pulev has been put in with a lot of guys that are more fringe level contenders rather than top 10 fighters, and that obviously has helped him because there are a lot of heavyweights that would have given him problems due to his lack of power.
Pulev, 33, is too old to develop any additional power in time to give him a fighting chance against Wladimir. So instead of depending on his power, Pulev is going to need to try and somehow out-box Wladimir. This means he’s going to need to jab constantly to try and keep Wladimir from being able to land his right hand power shot that he likes to throw.
It’s also possible that Pulev might be able to hurt Wladimir with one of his jabs if he can land it while Wladimir is coming forward trying to connect with a right hand or left hook. Pulev’s best punch is his jab unfortunately, but he still has a chance of stopping Wladimir if he can land the shot cleanly when he least suspects it.
