Posts tagged WladimirKlitschko at FanHouse

Wladimir Klitschko retained his heavyweight boxing title belts today in Germany, beating the American Tony Thompson with an 11th-round knockout.

It wasn't a particularly exciting fight, but it was a dominant performance by Klitschko. I live blogged the fight and gave all 10 rounds to Klitschko before he finally ended it with a hard right hand to the chin in the 11th. The HBO punch stats indicated that Thompson actually landed more punches, 150-121, but Klitschko was much more powerful. The fight was never really in doubt.

Thompson was considered the top American heavyweight heading into the fight, but given his weak effort, Chris
Arreola has probably earned that distinction now. Klitschko entered tonight's fight widely regarded as the best heavyweight boxer in the world, and although he wasn't exciting tonight, nothing happened to change that perception. He's still the champ.

Wladimir Klitschko will take on Tony Thompson today for the IBF and WBO heavyweight title, and we'll be live blogging it, starting at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.

Wladimir Klitschko is the heavyweight champion of the world, in the sense that he's putting a couple of heavyweight title belts on the line when he fights Tony Thompson in Germany tomorrow, and in the sense that he's the top-rated heavyweight according to The Ring.

But Klitschko has had so many lackluster performances -- including a lopsided but dull unanimous decision victory over Sultan Ibragimov in his last fight -- that hardly anyone is talking about his fight with Thompson, even though it's just over 24 hours away. That's why Klitschko needs not just to win, but to dominate.

Here's a look at upcoming title and televised bouts for the month of July. It's a pretty light month until July 26 when undefeated Miguel Cotto defends his welterweight title against Antonio Margarito. It's a bout worthy of pay-per-view as both men come in full of confidence and fighting as well as they ever have. Margarito will keep coming no matter what kind of bombs Cotto throws his way and Cotto has rarely been tested by a fighter with Margarito's ability. The winner will unquestionably be the best welterweight in the world.

The other fight that will garner a lot of attention will be Wladimir Klitschko's heavyweight title defense against Tony Thompson. There's not as much question about who will be left standing at the end of this one, Klitschko's a heavy favorite, but lingering questions about the champ's chin should make this a must-see as well. Make no mistake, though, Cotto-Margarito is the one fight you can't miss this month.

Most people who are familiar with heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko know that he's Ukranian. What's less widely known is that Klitschko was actually born in Kazakhstan, heretofore best known as the birthplace of Borat Sagdiyev, chronicler of all things American.

Sagdiyev is, of course, fictional and the creation of the British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen. His depiction of Kazakhstan as a cultural backwater was a big generator of laughs, although presumably not in Almaty. Deadspin reports (via KZ Blog), Klitschko pretended to be one of the peeved when he ran into Cohen recently.

According to The Daily Star, Klitschko said: "As he walked past me I turned to face him and said, 'Hey, I think you are an a--hole for what you said about Kazakhstan'. Unbelievably, he started to defend himself – but before he could continue I stood up and was towering over him. I said, 'I have broken people's necks for less than what you have done.'"

"He looked frightened – like he had picked a fight with the wrong man. And then I owned up and told him I really think his Borat character is amazing. He looked pretty relieved!"

As we would be! There are scarier prospects than having the heavyweight champion of the world angrily towering over you, I suppose. Like a former heavyweight champion you tower over threatening to eat your children but this will do in a pinch.

During last night's Samuel Peter-Oleg Maskaev fight, HBO play-by-play man Jim Lampley mentioned that Lennox Lewis and Rocky Marciano are, in Lampley's words, "the only two heavyweight champions who have defeated every man with whom they were ever in the ring."

Lewis avenged both of his losses, to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, and also won the rematch after his draw with Evander Holyfield. Marciano, of course, is the only heavyweight champ to retire with a perfect record.

But then Lampley's broadcast partner, Max Kellerman, told Lampley that he was forgetting someone: Gene Tunney. Kellerman pointed out that the only man to defeat Tunney was Harry Greb in 1922, and that Tunney had subsequently defeated Greb, so Tunney actually belonged in that class alongside Lewis and Marciano.

Lampley then acceded to Kellerman's superior knowledge of boxing history. And, as anyone who has watched Kellerman knows, everyone should accede to Kellerman's superior knowledge of boxing history. Kellerman's knowledge of boxing history is staggering -- even when it comes to boxers who fought half a century or more before the 34-year-old Kellerman was born.

But there's a problem: In this case, Kellerman was wrong.

On Pardon the Interruption today, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon compared Wladimir Klitschko to Kimbo Slice, and suffice to say, the PTI guys are not fans of Kimbo:

"The stuff that Kimbo Slice does, this mixed martial arts, I'm sorry, it looks like savagery to me," Kornheiser said.

To which Wilbon replied, "It is. It is savagery. ... It's so brutal, Tony, it is so savage, that when there's a knockout and somebody's on somebody pounding him and the refs have to come in, I can't watch it."

It's too bad that the PTI guys feel that way. I can live with it if prominent members of the sports media want to call Kimbo Slice's little corner of the MMA world "savagery." This is, after all, a guy who got famous beating people up in back alleys. But conflating Slice with the rest of MMA is silly, and MMA is no more savage a sport than boxing, which Kornheiser and Wilbon endorse.

We're one step closer to having a unified heavyweight boxing champion after Wladimir Klitschko defeated Sultan Ibragimov to add the WBO title belt to the IBF title belt he already owned.

And we'll get another step closer if, as expected, Klitschko next fights WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev.

But what about the fourth and final heavyweight title belt, from the WBC? That one is currently owned by Oleg Maskaev, who fights Samuel Peter in two weeks. If a Klitschko-Chagaev fight could be arranged quickly, and the winner of that one takes on the Maskaev-Peter winner, we'd have a unified title.

But it's not that simple, because there's a wild card in all of this: Klitschko's older brother, Vitali. Although Vitali hasn't fought in more than three years, there's talk that he'll make his return to the ring some time this year and take on the Maskaev-Peter winner.

That means we could be looking at Vitali Klitschko owning one heavyweight title belt and Wladimir Klitschko owning the other three. And that would set up a brother vs. brother fight for the unified heavyweight title, a fight that would be the biggest thing heavyweight boxing has seen since Lennox Lewis fought Mike Tyson.

Except that the fight will never happen. Both Klitschko brothers say they'll honor a vow to their mother not to fight each other. That means we boxing fans may be robbed of the fight we all really want to see. Thanks a lot, Mrs. Klitschko.

The first heavyweight unification bout of the 21st Century wasn't a particularly entertaining fight, but it was Wladimir Klitschko's first step toward unifiying the titles, with a unanimous decision victory over Sultan Ibragimov at Madison Square Garden.

Klitschko used his enormous height and reach advantage to knock down the southpaw Ibragimov's jabs, and Klitschko's own jabs were effective against Ibragimov. But for much of the fight those left jabs were all he used -- he was so hesitant to follow the left with the right that it raised the question of whether his right hand or shoulder was injured. Klitschko did, however, eventually start unleashing the right.

The crowd grew restless and often booed as the fight wore on and both fighters took cautious approaches, and Klitschko's 50th career win was not from his most impressive.

Ibragimov entered as the WBO champion and Klitschko entered as the IBF champion. There's a good chance that the belts will be unified within the next year, which would be great for boxing. But it would be even better for boxing if its top heavyweight fights were more entertaining than this one.

Tonight's Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov fight is a big one for the heavyweight division, as it could be the first step on the road toward, finally, a unified heavyweight champion. But it was also an opportunity for Klitschko to make an outstanding appearance on Conan O'Brien.

Funny stuff, via Deadspin.

Klitschko-Ibragimov starts around 10 p.m. Eastern tonight on HBO.