22.04.06 – By Izyaslav “Slava” Koza: Wladimir Klitschko won as expected but employing a somewhat interesting strategy, something that I always wanted to see a fighter employ against Chris Byrd. It’s common knowledge that Byrd loves to swat away his opponent’s punches, a tactic that was often successful in dissuading his opponents from throwing punches, considering when they did, they sometimes would injure their hands when Byrd picked off their punches. Tonight, what Wladimir Klitschko did, however, is rather then let Byrd swat away his punches, he turned the tables and did the exact same thing to the American.
Unfortunately for Byrd, he was unable to find an answer for that tactic, and due to his limited size, could not really attack Wladimir very effectively, since most of his lunges were met either with a step back by Wladimir or with the dreaded clinch. Again, as in the Peter fight, whatever your opinion of it may be, Klitschko held more than most fans desired in the rounds where Byrd was not smacked around with his devastating right hand. Harold Lederman mentioned that the referee warned Wladimir four times during the bout, even though I only saw one single warning, but I thought that the four would be justified.
This swat, counter-swat, jab, hold game went on until the fifth, when Wladimir decided to unload a right hand, that crumpled Byrd like a Mack Truck meeting a Ferrari head on. What followed was expected, but not pretty to say the least. Byrd got up and found himself in the familiar position, where he fought out of for most of his career, that is, fighting off the ropes against a bigger man. Much like Golota, McCline, and others before him, Klitshko unloaded but did not land enough to end it.
From the fifth round on, Wladimir was confident that he could tag Byrd with his right hand, a punch he had seldom used during the fight for some odd reason. Byrd had lost almost every round and was getting a humiiating boxing lesson by Wladimir. However, once Wladimir started to land his lethal right hand, it was clear that the fight wasn’t likely to go many more rounds. Byrd’s face was swelling badly, just as in the first fight, and almost seemed like he had been run over by a truck, the swelling was so bad. The thing is, Wladimir didn’t even appear to be looking for a knockout, yet his punches were so powerful, that you could hear the sound clearly as he pounded Byrd’s face over and over without stop. This time, Wladimir showed no signs of getting tired, as if he was enjoying the brutal beating he was inflicting upon the nearly helpless Byrd. During the last two rounds, Byrd was nothing more than a human punching bag for Wladimir, and it seemed as if he was just waiting to be put out of his misery, as he offered up nothing in the way of offense or defense.
Finally, the lethal blow came in the 7th round, when Wladimir landed a huge right hand that sent Byrd reeling down to the canvas. He immediately rose on wobbly legs, however, his face was a crimson mask of blood, causing the referee to step in and halt the bout before Wladimir could add to the damage any further. There was really no point to letting it go on, since to let Wladimir land even one more laser-like right hand, would be inhumane. Byrd looked like beaten dog and it was pitiful to see him reduced to a bloody, battered mess, by Wladimir’s punches.
With the victory, Klitschko regains a portion of the heavyweight title, and as everybody has picked up on, this means that three out of four heavyweight champions are ex-Soviets. It is now up to Oleg Maskaev to complete the cycle, and take the WBC belt from Hasim Rahman.
Though I am satisfied with this win, since this was what I expected, however, I’m anxious to see Maskaev knockout Hasim Rahman, one more time.
Coincidentally, it was severely disappointing that HBO did not give Alexander Povetkin the benefit of a short highlight reel. There were reports that the fight would be aired and had even been reduced from eight rounds to six in order to fit it in as a last minute supporting bout, and if that seemed unlikely since the Klitschko bout ended way before the scheduled time slot HBO allotted to it, a two-minute reel still could have been fitted in.
Povetkin, coming into his seventh professional bout, pounded out a majority points win against the “too tough for only a seventh pro fight” Friday Ahunanya. Ahunanya had previously gone the distance with current WBO champ, Sergei Lyakhovich, undefeated monster Sultan Ibragimov (TD 9), and former prospect Dominick Guinn. Granted, the fight was not shown as mentioned, (thanks HBO!) this was still a terrific win for a hot prospect. It seems the promise of taking Povetkin to the top in three years, made by his promoter Wilfried Sauerland, is well on its way to coming true.
Congratulations to both Alexander Povetkin and Wladimir Klitschko for not disappointing fans by actually meeting their expectations.
BRING ON MASKAEV RAHMAN! GO OLEG!