Klitschko Pounds Brewster, Looks Ahead

Wladimir Klitschko avenged the most puzzling loss of his career by thoroughly dominating Lamond Brewster for six rounds Saturday night in Cologne, Germany. The younger Klitschko controlled the action with his jab, landing (by HBO’s count) 162 in the six rounds. Brewster put up literally no defense and had no answer for the 6’6 Ukrainian’s strong jab, measured stalking and powerful right hand. His corner threw in the towel before the start of the seventh round, despite not being knocked down in the fight. His trainer, Buddy McGirt, told Brewster he couldn’t let him continue taking that kind of punishment. It was the right call by McGirt as Brewster (now 33-4, 29 KO’s) was never in the fight and was simple out-classed. Klitschko retained his IBF and IBO titles with the victory and ran his career record to 49-3 with 44 KO’s. It was his seventh straight win, his last loss coming at the hands of Brewster three years ago.

This fight, once again, proved that Klitschko is easily the world’s most dominant heavyweight. But the thing you have to love about him, other than the fact that his nickname is “Dr. Steel Hammer” or that he has a Ph.D., is that he really wants to get better and prove how good he is to everyone. And he is on an endless quest to unify the heavyweight titles. There’s a problem with that journey though, it may end in disappointment for everyone.

Though he seems intent on fighting the best out there and gaining all of the titles in the division, there is little incentive for other fighters to risk their belts by fighting him. The three other current belt-holders are Ruslan Chagaev (WBA), Oleg Maskaev (WBC) and Sultan Ibragimov (IBO). Chagaev and Ibragimov are scheduled to fight on October 13th, in what will be the first heavyweight unification bout since Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield fought in 1999. Maskaev will fight Samuel Peter in his next fight, as his WBC-mandated challenger. After those two fights do we really expect any of the champions to accept a fight with Klitschko? He’s a lot of fun to watch for fans because of his skill, power and personality, but he poses way too many problems for any challenger. Hopefully someone throws enough money at the Maskaev/Peter winner or the Chagaev/Ibragimov winner so that we can actually see a match-up that means something.

Basically I didn’t learn anything from tonight’s punishment of Brewster. Therefore I want to expound on something that’s been bothering me for quite some time. Larry Merchant is absolutely F-ING INSANE! Dude is losing it faster than a virgin in a whorehouse. It’s sad to watch, but the guy makes no f-ing sense when he talks. He rarely finishes any sentence he starts and it has to be turning viewers off. I had to watch the build up to the fight with the sound off, it got so bad. And in his post-fight interviews, none of the fighters ever know exactly what he’s asking them. To be fair, at this point I don’t think Larry knows. But he verbally spars with whoever the other analyst is and he’s usually clearly in the wrong. I swear he and Roy Jones Jr. almost came to blows on a regular basis while calling fights. I’ve dealt with it for a long time because he’s sort of always been HBO’s guy, but it’s time to put the 97-year-old pony out to pasture. Bring in Max Kellerman to take his spot (which we all know they are going to do eventually) and give Larry a nice severance check. Unless you want to keep losing viewers.