By Michael Collins: Being 39-years-old and seven inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than the 6’6” 245 pound IBF/WBA/WBC heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (56-3, 49 KO’s), French challenger Jean Marc Mormeck (36-4, 22 KO’s) will have to take a lot of chances on March 3rd if he wants to find a way to win this fight. He’ll be fighting in Klitschko’s adopted country of Germany in front of a huge crowd at the Esprit Arena in Dusseldorf, and it’s going to be tough in almost every area for the former WBA/WBC cruiserweight champion Mormeck.
It’s rare for a cruiserweight to move up in weight and win a world title. It happens from time to time, but it’s kind of rare. It takes an exceptional athlete to accomplish this and it also helps when a former cruiserweight is aimed at a weak paper champion, kind of like what David Haye did when he went after WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev in 2009 when he won the WBA title rather than going after more solid targets that would beat him like Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko. Mormeck is going to have an even time of beating Wladimir, because of Mormeck’s advanced age, short height and reach, his light weight in comparison to Wladimir, and his lack of competition.
Mormeck hasn’t faced a true 1st tier heavyweight in his three fights in the weight class, and yet he barely won those three fights. He looked awful and got wins in Paris, France in his home city. If Mormeck plans on beating Wladimir, he’ll have to pressure him like Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster did in beating Wladimir. Sanders didn’t get hit all that much because he was quick when he came forward to land his big shots. He had the advantage of being 6’4”, a southpaw and with fast hands.
Wladimir didn’t know how to deal with his speed and power and was destroyed. Brewster, who didn’t have size or speed, had to take a lot of heavy shots from Wladimir before he was able to unload his payload with a big left hook that badly hurt Wladimir and resulted in Wladimir being taken out in the 5th.