by James Slater – Reigning IBF and WBO heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko is currently locked away pushing himself to the limit in training camp for his June 20th defence against the unbeaten Ruslan Chagaev. Always a true professional, it really is no surprise Wladimir is cutting no corners whatsoever for the fight that will contest the Ring magazine championship belt. However, if anything, “Dr. Steel Hammer” is working even harder for this fight than he has for any other..
Knowing all about the history of boxing, where a late replacement foe has come in and upset the champ, Klitschko is making sure this will not happen to him. Originally set (as if anyone didn’t know) to face orthodox fighter David Haye, Klitschko will now face a southpaw in Chagaev and the 52-3(46) champion is doing plenty of sparring to get himself ready.
FightNews.com ran a report from Klitschko’s Austrian training camp, and the 33-year-old – who has been working with seven different sparring partners and has been doing ten to twelve rounds a day with them – had the following things to say.
“For me it’s a difficult fight. I have just two weeks for preparation,” Wladimir said. “Ruslan Chagaev is a left-hander, but I have experience and victories over strong southpaws like Sultan Ibragimov and Tony Thompson.
“I decided not to cancel the fight on June 20th because I don’t wish to upset the fans. There will be an overflow crowd and it will be an excellent fight.”
Hopefully, the fight will be excellent, and not a repeat of the two fights Wladimir himself mentioned as examples of when he faced a southpaw, in Ibragimov and Thompson. Neither of those two fights – the infamous bore-fest points win over Ibragiomv especially – were classics, which is putting it mildly. Now, in front of the thousands of fans David Haye helped gather, Klitschko needs anything but a dull encounter.
Still, in expecting Klitschko to win, and asking him to make sure he does so in an exciting way, is to pay a disservice to former WBA champion Chagaev (title never lost in the ring). A fine technician with a good boxing brain, the 25-0-1(17) from Uzbekistan could well pull off a win of his own. A lot may depend on how fit and sharp Chagaev is. His long bouts of idleness due to injury and illness have been well documented, and it’s to be hoped the 30-year-old is at his fighting best on June 20th. If he’s not, he may be in for a bad loss; perhaps even a KO loss.
Above all, fingers crossed the fight does indeed go ahead and we have no repeat of what happened back at the end of May, when Chagaev’s fight with Nikolai Valuev was called off at the eleventh hour.
I don’t think the fans could take THREE postponed heavyweight title fights in less than a month!