Wladimir “Dr. Steelhammer” Klitschko, 63-3 (53), paid a house call this past Saturday in Hamburg, Germany, dishing out a solid beating to his No. 1 IBF contender Kubrat Pulev, 20-1 (11), of Bulgaria. Pulev was no stranger to the German fans making his 18th appearance in 21 fights.
Pulev did a poor imitation of Chris Byrd with hands held high and body exposed knowing it wouldn’t get hit much and on that end he was right. Klitschko made his 17th defense of his IBF title. He has 17 WBO, 6 WBA and 15 IBO defenses.
Pulev’s “warm up fight” was in April against Ivica Perkovic of Croatia who was 20-23. The next challenger to replace Pulev in the IBF ratings is Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Glazkov, 19-0-1 (12), who in 2013 was lucky to get a draw with Malik Scott. In August he got a gift majority decision over Derric Rossy and a week ago took 7 rounds to stop ill conditioned Darnell “Ding-A-Ling” Wilson who lost 11 of his last 13 fights, 5 by knockout. Maybe in a year Glazkov will be “ready” for a title shot.
The WBO No. 1 is Dereck “Del Boy” Chisora, 20-4 (13), of the UK, who is fighting for the vacant British title and defending his EBU title November 28th against Tyson Fury, 22-0 (16), in a rematch of their July 2011 fight won by then 14-0 Fury. Born in Zimbabwe, Chisora lost in February 2012 to Wladimir’s brother Vitali by decision for the WBC title.
The WBA’s No. 1 ranked Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz, a Cuban southpaw out of Miami, FL, 22-0 (16), who doesn’t have a top 10 contender on his record that I know of seems untested.
The WBC champion Bermane “B. Ware” Stiverne, 24-1-1 (21), a Haitian out of Las Vegas, NV, defeated Chris Arreola in May of this year for the title vacated by Vitali Klitschko. Being his promoter is none other than Don King you know his defense against his No. 1 contender and lone American, Deontay “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder, 32-0 (32) won’t happen until sometime in 2015.
So to re-cap there’s Chisora (WBO), Ortiz (WBA), and Glazkov (IBF) atop of the heap. The IBO’s Pulev was No. 1 and Alexander Povetkin who was stopped by Klitschko in 2013 No. 2.
At age 38 Klitschko is heading back to the US to his fiancé who is expecting their first child in several weeks. His brother Vitali was in the corner. How long Klitschko will continue to box we don’t know. He is being stalked by his No. 7 WBA contender Shannon Briggs, 57-6-1 (50), the former WBO champion who lost to Vitali Klitschko in 2010 and didn’t return to the ring until 2014 posting 6 wins, 5 by knockout over limited opponents. He was at ringside in Germany being held back by a security guard.
Southpaw Ruslan “the White Tyson” Chagaev, 33-2 1 (20) of Uzebekistan and living in Germany and holds the WBA title since Klitschko holds the WBA Super title. So Chagaev and Ortiz may meet down the line. Klitschko stopped Chagaev in 2009 when Chagaev held the WBA title but didn’t have it on the line. So it’s doubtful there will be a re-match in the near future.
The guess here is Chisora will be next while Klitschko is waiting for the Stiverne-Wilder winner. Both fights could take place by April of 2015 with the winner fighting this time next year for all the marbles!
