Is Wladimir Klitschko as good as Steward claims?
Legendary trainer Emanuel Steward, offered insight recently by comparing WBO/IBF/IBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko with other all-time greats. Steward will be working with Klitschko in his corner Saturday night when he defends his titles in a rematch against Samuel Peter in Germany.
When asked about Wladimir in relation to Lennox Lewis, with whom Steward also worked, Steward told reporter Alexander Pavlov: "The movement of Wladimir is better balanced. He clearly works more with his legs. I worked with five world champions in the heavyweight division, including Evander Holyfield. And I will say that Wladimir’s body of work and his coordination is better than all the rest of my students. However, sometimes he must act more aggressively. Sometimes he thinks for too long. If it wasn't for that, he would leave his opponents with no chance at all.”
Steward also said: “He [Klitschko] is the most powerful natural talent than any other heavyweight champion with whom I've worked.”
This statement sounds nice on paper, and certainly rings like Prokofiev to Klitschko’s ears, but is it really accurate? There is little denying that Klitschko is one supremely huge piece of body mass that, just due to sheer size, is incredibly powerful. But Klitschko and most other heavyweights today have the speed of severely overweight dog, and they often look sluggish in the ring compared to the old greats. They look sometimes like they are too big and hulking to make any sense in boxing gloves, as if the sport secretly conspires against them.
Steward added: "The jab of Wladimir is considerably more powerful, it is simply shocking, and penetrates the opponent from head to toe. Ali is similar but when he tries to come in forward in a straight line he loses some of his balance and coordination. In a number of technical aspects, Klitschko is significantly superior. In terms of a jab, for me he's the best. After him, in that element, I would put Larry Holmes, and then Lewis.”
Did he really just say that Klitschko has a better jab than Muhammad Ali? Next we’re going to hear he has a better jab than the “brown bomber” Joe Louis too.
It makes sense that Steward would speak favourably about his fighters, but it is also necessary to put his words in perspective. If David Haye ever grows man enough to take on Klitschko, one of his greatest weapons, aside from his speed, will be his jab against the bigger Wladimir. As well, while Klitschko is the bigger man, he won’t have much of a reach advantage for that point to be entirely accurate (Haye loses on an inch on each arm to Klitschko). In other words, Klitschko doesn't even have the best jab in the heavyweight division today, let alone all-time.
So how good is Klitschko? What we know is he’s good and he’s the top of the line in a division that has suffered terribly in recent years. So if Klitschko appears great, it's really tough to compare him against other fighters who had to fight real competition. Greatness would be an attributed falsely endowed onto Wlad by the mediocrity of his division.
What’s more is that we know Klitschko can be beat. It’s true that he’s compiled a statistically unassailable record, with 54 wins and only three losses, but he can be beat. And not just that. He’s shown his chin to be suspect in the past, for instance in his first bout against Lamon Brewster. Don’t forget that in the three bouts Klitschko has lost, he’s been knocked out in all of them. That’s a perfect record. And he’s been floored otherwise on other occasions, against Steve Pannell or Samuel Peter for instance.
The key to beating Klitschko seemed to be about catching him with a stunning shot, and then capitalizing on it so that he hasn’t time to recover. In the Corrie Sanders fight, Klitschko gets popped by surprise in the first round and hits the canvas like a sack of potatoes. But this would have never happened to Ali. He was never floored by a single shot.
No matter how good his jab is, and it's probably not even as good as Steward likes to think, he'll have a long way to go before we start uttering him the same breath as Muhammad Ali, or even Lennox Lewis.
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