by Pavel Yakovlev – (March 20, 2011) – Vitali Klitschko retained his WBC heavyweight championship yesterday, stopping Odlanier Solis in the first round. The challenger was hurt and knocked down by a single right to the temple. Although Solis arose, he wobbled helplessly while clutching the ropes to maintain his balance. Referee Guadalupe Garcia waived the contest off at 3:00 of the round.
During the fight, Solis suffered a knee injury. Either the knee was twisted as Solis recoiled from the blow and stumbled, or the damage occurred as he fell with his legs spread awkwardly. As Solis struggled to his feet, it was difficult to tell if he was more incapacitated by his knee or by the mental daze caused by Klitschko’s punch. Regardless, there is no doubt that the knee was genuinely injured, and Solis was thus unable to continue the bout..
Until the sudden ending, Solis fought well, even though he was losing the round before being kayoed. Fighting out of a semi-crouch, his gloves held high and his shoulders hunched, Solis patiently retreated before the champion’s stalking, jabbing attack. Solis bobbed-and-weaved to elude Klitschko’s lefts, and managed to score with a few light counters to the head. Looking fit and strong at 247 lbs., Solis sometimes unloaded fast, powerful hooks and rights, although the punches narrowly missed due to Klitschko’s nimble head movement. On the whole, Solis’s speed, strength, and impressive timing suggested that a competitive bout was unfolding.
The kayo occurred abruptly and unexpectedly. Shifting suddenly to the offensive, Solis unleashed an explosive left-hook, right-hand combination to the champion’s head. Klitschko’s quick defensive reactions, however, enabled him to dodge the blows and counter with a casually thrown right that landed on Solis’s temple. The punch connected as Solis was ducking low, bobbing-and-weaving while initiating a retreat. Most likely, Solis never saw the right, and probably did not expect to be hit as he ducked and pulled away. Upon feeling the impact of the punch, Solis immediately wrapped his arms around his head in a defensive shield and then made the mistake of standing up and backing away in a straight line. Klitschko fired a final, sharp left jab at the wobbly challenger, who stumbled and fell flat on his back.
The boxing analysts at EpixHD.com were not impressed by Klitschko’s speedy victory. Veteran sportscaster Sam Rosen, respected ESPN boxing analyst Dan Rafael, WPAN radio host Tony Paige, and the all-time great former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis argued that the truth about Solis’s knee, most likely, is that it was injured before the challenger stepped into the ring yesterday.
Rafael minced no words, indicating that Solis’s right knee looked wobbly the moment before the knockdown, thus suggesting that the knee may have been injured prior to the fight, perhaps in training camp. Lewis took Rafael’s argument to a higher level by pointing out that Solis’s left leg stiffened before he fell back on the wobbly right leg, evincing that both knees may have been handicapped by preexisting injuries. In a strident voice, Paige intoned that a fraud was perpetuated on the public if, in fact, Solis had entered the ring in less than perfect shape. With Rosen functioning as something of a chorus conductor, encouraging his colleagues to proceed with their arguments, the analysts bandied about theories that Solis, his handlers, or the promoters, could have had financial incentives to follow through with the bout even though the Cuban challenger may have been unfit to fight.
In all fairness, The EpixHD.com analysts are a formidable lot, and their suspicions should not to be ignored. Thus, the question is, how did Solis’s knee problem originate, and was he felled by the injury, or by the champion’s fists?
REMEMBER: KLITSCHKO’S SNEAKY RIGHT IS A DANGEROUS PUNCH
Klitschko’s final right-hand did not appear to be a devastating, or even a heavy, punch. But the shot was effective. The champion’s kayo blow was classically Klitschkoesque: a curved-right hook lobbed effortlessly from an awkward angle, scoring on the opponent’s blind side. Klitschko has demolished 42 of 44 professional opponents by swinging slow, graceless, but dangerous punches of this sort. The champion is certainly a sneaky counterpuncher. He has the capacity to hit opponents when they least expect it. Hence, it is reasonable to believe that Klitschko’s counter right is the real reason Solis injured his knee. The punch caught Solis unaware and sent him stumbling backwards, making him fall with his legs in a twisted position.
There is also evidence that Solis did not enter the ring nursing a preexisting knee injury. Roman Kolaczek, a long-time insider in German boxing circles, was among the 19,000 in attendance for yesterday’s bout. Kolaczek observed both fighters’ training sessions prior to the match. Contacted by ESB after the bout, Kolaczek commented, “I doubt very much that Solis had injured the knee before the fight and then taken the fight under financial pressure. I saw Solis during workouts and there were no signs of an injury at any time.
This writer was at ringside for Solis’s sluggish win over Ray Austin (three months ago), and having noticed the dramatic improvement in the Cuban’s conditioning between that fight and yesterday, must concur with Kolaczek. Obviously, Solis was capable of training intensively in recent months: in the ring he looked smoking hot and exuded an air of supreme self-confidence. Yesterday, Solis’s body movement, punching speed, reaction time, and mental focus – at least until he was floored — seemed far better than what he showed against Austin.
Ultimately, the most convincing explanation for Solis’s knee injury is the one that is most obvious. Dazed by a right to the temple that he did not see, and psychologically shocked at the realization that Klitschko could connect from the most unexpected angles, Solis temporarily panicked and darted backwards in haste. Stunned and overeager to escape Klitschko’s reach, Solis lost his balance, stumbled, and twisted the knee when he fell with his legs spread awkwardly.
FOR SOLIS, THERE IS NO SHAME IN LOSING TO A GREAT CHAMPION
No doubt Solis and his promoter, Ahmet Oner, are despondent about the outcome of yesterday’s bout. That is natural. But they should be feeling optimistic. In the estimation of many, including this writer, it is inevitable that Solis will one day win a piece of the world championship. Possibly he could even unify the belts, at least once the Klitschkos retire. Solis really is that good, assuming he is in top physical condition (as he appeared to be yesterday, before injuring his knee). The Cuban has it all: power, speed, natural athletic ability, strength, and ring smarts. He is just 30-years-old, which is young in a division where boxers (these days at least) seem to peak only once they reach their early thirties.
Yesterday’s defeat was only Solis’s first in 17 professional fights. There is hope, and lots of it. From this point going forward, Solis just needs to make sure he keeps his weight in its current range, somewhere around 245 lbs. It will take a little time for the Cuban to actualize his potential, but he will surely get there. They say “Rome wasn’t built in day.” They could say the same, perhaps, about Havana. In Solis, Cuba will almost certainly, someday, have its first professional world heavyweight champion.
But for now, the real story is Vitali Klitschko. It has been nearly 12 years since Klitschko first burst onto the world heavyweight scene like a supernova, when he destroyed Herbie Hide in two rounds to win the WBO world title. Except for a few years when he was in retirement (induced, coincidentally, by a knee injury of his own), Klitschko has been a top-rated, dominant heavyweight. For almost six of the past 12 years, Klitschko has held either the WBO or the WBC versions of the world championship. His only losses have been because of injuries, in bouts where he won the vast majority of the rounds fought (to borrow a phrase used by Max Kellerman in one of his articles from years ago). 39 of the Ukrainian behemoth’s 42 professional wins have come by knockout, and the three men who lasted the distance with him lost virtually every round of the fights. Klitschko has fought and beaten the very best heavyweights of the past decade, and he has beaten them easily. Maybe it is time to start thinking seriously about Vitali Klitschko as one of history’s ten or 15 greatest heavyweight champions of all time.