By Dave Paxton
Against an overmatched opponent in WBO title holder Sultan Ibragimov, IBF title holder Wladimir Klitschko was expected to shine. Unfortunately, while Klitschko never seemed in danger of being seriously hurt or losing the fight, his performance left fans in the arena booing by the end of the third round.
Over the first seven rounds of the fight, Klitschko’s arsenal seemed to consist of a single weapon: the left jab. He threw 162 punches through those first 7 rounds, but 140 of them were jabs. When he wasn’t jabbing, he spent much of the time standing in front of Ibragimov, trying to brush Ibragimov’s raised hands out of the way with a strange downward slapping motion. In the 8th round Klitschko began to throw his right cross with some regularity, but Ibragimov seemed to take the punches well.
In the 9th round, Klitschko finally unleashed a combination of punches, starting with a left jab, followed by a right hand, then a left hook and finally another right hand that buckled Ibragimov’s knees and sent him crashing into the ropes. The crowd cheered, sensing that Klitschko would finally finish him, but it never happened. Ibragimov somehow managed to stay upright and clinched, and Klitschko seemed to ease up through the remainder of the round. In fact, that was the high point of the fight.
Although Ibragimov did not seem inclined to mount any kind of serious attack himself, Klitschko played it safe and coasted to a decision, much to the chagrin of his fans and his trainer, Emanuel Steward. After the 10th round, Steward scolded Klistchko, complaining that “this shouldn’t be going 12 rounds with him.” Then, before the final round, Steward pleaded with Klitschko to try to get the knockout. “Winning a decision in this fight is not good at all,” he said, “You have to try to knock him out or it’s going to be bad.” Klitschko ultimately won a unanimous decision easily (the scorecards were 119-110, 117-111 and 118-110, all for Klitschko) and picked up Ibragimov’s WBO title in the process, but it was just not the type of performance that fans want to see from the man who hopes to be acknowledged one day as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
