Brick City Boxing

By: Danny Serratelli, ringside

Wladamir Klitschko won a tactical fight in which many ringside observers (but not the official judges) felt he barely won when he captured a unanimous decision over his much smaller awkward lefty opponent Sultan Ibragimov. Early on Sultan tried to establish his jab, but Klitschko’s game plan appeared to be only to not let Sultan land any jabs. For many of the early rounds Klitschko seemed content to just smack down Sultans jab down and keep his distance. Slapping down a jab is not enough to win rounds, therefore I had Ibragimov winning a few of the early rounds due to the fact that he was the aggressor, he did some body work and would at least take some chances and occasionally connect, although he did not appear to land anything clean.

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As the fight went on neither man really let their hands go, but it appeared that Ibragimov was trying harder and he definitely had to exert much more energy to even attempt to go on the offensive. Klitschko kept his distance and balance and did not let his right hand go until about the midway point of the fight. Obviously these tactics did not make for the most entertaining (WBO/IBF) heavyweight unification bout.

After the fight, both Klitschko and trainer Emanuel Stewart were in agreement that they were concerned about giving Ibragimov any opportunities. Klitschko appeared to be too defensive, be he and Stewart explained that they knew that Ibragimov’s only chance was if he could establish his jab or if he could get Klitschko miss with the right, lose his balance and get countered.

It seemed Manny and Wladamir were way too concerned with taking even a single punch from the much smaller Ibragimov, who is a decent puncher, but far from a huge knockout puncher. Stewart and Klitschko also complained about the awkwardness, and size disparity. An awkward fighter can create problems for even the best opponents, but the size advantage that Klitschko possesses should have been just that, an advantage.

On paper it would seem that a small game southpaw like Chris Byrd would possibly present more problems for Klitschko than Ibragimov, but it seemed that the fact that Ibragimov had a possesses a little more pop than Byrd made Wlad and Manny be sure to stick to the game plan and just win the fight, even if it would end up being a snoozer. Wlad got the win and the official judges scorecards were pretty wide.(judge: Don Ackerman 119-110 | judge: Chuck Giampa 117-111 | judge: Steve Weisfeld 118-110) I had the fight scored 115-113, with Klitschko winning the fight, but I felt that he could have done more and made much more of a statement against the tough but limited Ibragimov.