By Michael Collins: With his attempts at negotiating a fight with former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye going nowhere, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (43-2, 40 KO’s) decided to bail and take a stay busy fight against #15 WBC ranked fringe contender Dereck Chisora (15-2, 9 KO’s) on February 18th in Munich, Germany.
Chisora, 28, is a trash talker just like Haye, but not quite as charismatic. To say that Chisora hasn’t earned this title shot is putting it lightly. The guy has lost two out of his three fights and seems to have gotten the title shot because of his performance in his 12 round split decision loss to Robert Helenius last December. Chisora was praised for his performance in taking the fight to the usually passive Helenius.
It was thought after the fight that Chisora had forced the guy to fight his fight, and that’s why Chisora had looked so good. However, it’s now known that Helenius went into the Chisora fight with a torn up right shoulder that prevented him from using his right hand in the fight other than on rare occasions. When you look at what Chisora did under that light, it looks much less impressive. Chisora was easily beaten by Tyson Fury in his fight before that in July of last year. All Fury did was jab, move and throw combinations and he easily beat Chisora.
Vitali will do to Chisora what he’s done to similar wide bodied slow fighters in the past by jabbing and countering him at will until he’s busted up and stopped. Chisora is probably a big step down from previous Vitali victims Chris Arreola, Samuel Peter, Odlanier Solis and Tomasz Adamek. I rate Chisora above Albert Sosnowski but not by much. I think Kevin Johnson would jab Chisora into submission and Corrie Sanders that Vitali beat in 2004, would knock Chisora out in two or three rounds. This is a mismatch, like I said.