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Wladimir Dominated Povetkin “The Tweener”

Wladimir Klitschko 61-3 (51) and Alexander Povetkin 26-1 (18) fought this past weekend in Olimpiyskiy, Moscow, Russia for Klitschko’s WBO/WBA/IBF heavyweight titles. When it was over Klitschko left the ring with a unanimous decision victory, retaining his vast collection of heavyweight title belts.
When I suggest above that they fought, I say it loosely. Actually, they attempted to fight and box, however there was some low brow grappling and even some attempted Judo throws on Klitschko’s part. Add to that Wladimir breaks the rules a lot, and he’s a tough guy for any average size, average-talented opponent like Povetkin to penetrate and break. Perhaps since Wladimir is willing to use illegal tactics (which he’s actually pretty good at) Povetkin should have tried to injure him and not to worry so much about beating him. Simply because some boxing observers believe that both Wladimir and Vitali, if they’re convinced that they’ve been injured or their health is at risk, they’ll resign from the fight, especially Wladimir. At this point, that may be the best chance anyone has to beat them. In a round-about way, that is a testament to how superior they are to their opposition and those qualified to challenge them.
Klitschko-Povetkin was a deplorable heavyweight title bout on behalf of both fighters. It was sloppy and hard to watch. Klitschko was definitely frustrated by Povetkin mauling him in his attempt to get inside. And Povetkin exhibited little head and upper-body movement in trying to nullify Klitschko’s long arms and reach. Povetkin knew he had no chance to score the upset unless he pressed the fight, it’s just that not only is Wladimir hard to get inside on, Povetkin lacked the needed skill and power to really force Klitschko to do anything he didn’t want to, despite his willingness to at least try. Being a swarmer like Povetkin without fight altering power is really a tough hill to climb when confronting Wladimir.
Every round of the bout looked like the previous one, with the exception of the four knockdowns that Klitschko scored. Povetkin was hurt by one big shot from Wladimir throughout the fight, yet cautious Wladimir with the exception of one time late in the bout, never really tried to finish Alexander in a memorable fashion. And that’s why so many sophisticated boxing fans and media hold their nose when they have to laud Wladimir with his earned praise for being a dominant champ. He hasn’t lost in nine years and you don’t need two full hands to count the rounds he’s lost since 2005.
Wladimir Klitschko is physically very strong and he can hit with his right hand and left-hook. However, he’s fortunate that every heavyweight fighter in the world today is a tweener. In other words, they don’t have any identity. There’s not one great boxer or puncher among them, nor is there one who is terrifically skilled or fast who can really box and fight.
In essence, all that Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko have to do is show up in great shape, which they always do, and not do anything stupid and they are 90% home. Their opponents don’t present them with anything they have to worry about or address, whereas their opponents have to address their size, strength and ring IQ pertaining to them knowing what they do best. While preparing for Povetkin, was there anything that Alexander could bring to the ring that Wladimir had to be terribly concerned about? No, there wasn’t. He didn’t have to worry about Povetkin’s power, nor his work-rate. He knew Povetkin lacked hand and foot speed and that he wouldn’t be difficult to hit and time if he was intent on pressing the fight. What Klitschko really had to worry about was not beating himself or making a mistake. As long as Wladimir was willing to make Povetkin have to solve him, he was okay, being that he held the advantage in size, strength, power, reach and experience.
Wladimir doesn’t want to trade or engage, he wants to pot-shot and cherry-pick safe and sure shots – knowing he only needs a couple clean ones to cease whatever is coming back at him. If they aren’t there he holds and paws, trying to induce his opponent to do something stupid or desperate, and he’ll wait for however long it takes.
There isn’t a fight plan imaginable that any trainer or fight tactician can devise to beat either Wladimir or Vitali Klitschko. A strategist can have the greatest fight plan in the world, but it won’t mean anything if his fighter is a tweener and has no stylistic or physical identity. It’ll take a physical talent who does something in the ring (box, punch, put combinations together with speed) that causes the brothers to worry about during camp. And as far down the road as can be seen, there isn’t one heavyweight prospect on the horizon who that can be said about. Vitali is 42 and Wladimir is 37, it’s plausible that the end of the run is in sight for both of them. So the odds are growing that they’ll be taken down and defeated by father time more than any heavyweight in the running to be their next opponent.
Sadly there isn’t a time machine that could bring Wladimir/Vitali back to 1960 and fight Sonny Liston or bring Liston up to 2013 and have him fight one of them. (That time machine, if only we could have it deliver George Foreman, pictured, circa 1973, to fight Wlad). All that can be said without trepidation is that since the end of the Tyson/Holyfield/Lewis era, the brothers have owned and dominated the heavyweight division as much as other past greats have. The problem is, they’ve feasted on a generation of heavyweights with no identity, fighters I refer to as tweeners, and that’s not their fault. It would be something to see them have to confront one of the past greats from the 70s, 80s or 90s. That would be a good gauge and barometer on how good or great they really are. Right now it’s most accurate to submit that at the least they’ve dominated the way they should have and didn’t squander their talent or opportunity.
Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@gmail.com
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.
The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.
The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.
Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.
Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.
A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.
In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.
Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.
In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.
Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.
Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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