Wladimir puts in a horrible performance against Povetkin

Wladimir Klitschko dominated Alexander Povetkin tonight in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision in Moscow, Russia, but this has got to be the worst performance of Wladimir’s career by far. 

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I know that’s hard to say because he’s looked incredibly terrible in his defeats to Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster, but tonight Wladimir took mediocrity to a whole new level by clinching his way to a 12 round unanimous decision over Povetkin.

Wladimir retained his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles with the victory, but I think he may have lost a heck of a lot of fans with this awful performance.

Referee Luis Pabon really dropped the ball tonight by letting Wladimir hold Povetkin and pull down on his head for all he was worth for 12 rounds. Early on, Pabon should have given Wladimir a stern warning for his grabbing and shoving Povetkin because it constant.

In many cases Wladimir wouldn’t even look to throw a punch before jumping on Povetkin with a clinch.


It was like Wladimir grabbing calf with the way he’d launch himself at Povetkin, grab him by the neck and start with the leaning forward to get him into a helpless bent over position. The pulling down on Povetkin’s neck did most of Wladimir’s work tonight because it wore Povetkin down to the point where he was a desperate, red-faced fighter looking to land one big shot at a time.

Wladimir did get 4 knockdowns, but 1 one of them was from a shove in the 7th, and two others in that round came in between shoves. I thought I was watching an MMA fight with the way that Wladimir was shoving and grappling with the poor Povetkin.

This fight made Wladimir look like a total amateur, and even the Russians were booing like at mad from the 3rd round on. I don’t know why this didn’t motivate Wladimir to stop clinching because it should have. 

It was embarrassing to watch. If Wladimir’s late trainer Emanuel Steward had been in his corner tonight, he would have likely been an unhappy camper with the way that he fought. Steward would have asking Wladimir to throw some punches and stop with the grabbing.

The scores from the judges were 119-104 for all three of them. There’s no arguments about that, because Wladimir won 11 of the 12 rounds. The 11th round was even due to Wladimir losing a point for pushing Povetkin to the canvas.

The referees that work Wladimir’s future fights need to make sure that they do something to stop his clinching and shoving because I counted over 12 clinches per round in some of the rounds and at least 10 the others. That’s just unheard of for a fighter to be grabbing that much and getting away with it.