I wasn’t watching the (nearly unwatchable) Wladimir Klitschko vs. Alexander Povetkin heavyweight bout for long before I found myself saying at least once a round: “Ferchrissakes ref, holding is a foul!”
Nevermind all the shoving, pushing, tripping, and leaning Klitschko was doing while he was holding. Luis Pabon warnings were infrequent and weak, and he should have begun deducting points starting in Round 3 or 4, not Round 11. In particular, at least two of the three “knockdowns” in Round 7 were really slips resulting from Klitschko shoving Povetkin to the floor, and therefore should have resulted in Klitschko losing two points and finally being disqualified.
However, if Pabon had shown a willingness to do his job by giving stern warnings and backing them up with point deductions earlier in the fight, the atrocious Round 7 likely would never have happened. Dr. Steelhammer is not a self-destructive freak ala Andrew “The Foul Pole” Golota.
Klitschko would have certainly backed off of his grab-lean-shove style of infighting defense, and who knows what might have happened then. Maybe *gasp* an actual fight would have broken out.
Check the Rulebook
Excessive holding is a foul. It is a more tolerated foul than others, but it remains a foul and should be cited as such, especially when one party in the ring is doing all the grabbing, as was the case this weekend.
Klitschko’s new trainer, Johnathon Banks, said that Klitschko’s tentacle tactics were adopted from Lennox Lewis, and many Klitbots have begun parroting that line of rubbish. While Lewis sometimes used holding as a defensive tactic, as many boxers do, he never used it on the scale employed by Big Wlad this past weekend.
For one thing, Lewis was noted for sometimes resorting a highly physical, brutal, brawling pounce of an infighting style, something Dr. Steelhammer never does. For another, the only fight in Lewis’s entire career that resembles what happened in Moscow was Lewis vs. Akinwande, and in that fight Akinwande did all the holding and was disqualified for doing so!
Something Smells in Central-Eastern Europe
What happened this past weekend was that a fighter finally did what heavyweight observers have been hoping for now for eight years: Povetkin got through Klitschko’s jab and closed the range. He was trying to land the overhand right on the inside, and in my opinion he might have started doing it if Klitschko hadn’t turned into an octopus. This is not to say that Povetkin would have won a clean fight, but he at least would have had a chance.
Some fight fans might recall referee Luis Pabon from last year’s Povetkin vs. Huck fight, where he was widely condemned for interfering too much, and too obviously in favor of Povetkin in that instance, helping Povetkin secure a questionable decision over the Cruiserweight champ. In contrast to this past weekend’s performance, in that fight Pabon broke up so many clinches he even disrupted clinches that didn’t actually happen, doing his very best to make sure the infighting Huck kept his distance from Povetkin.
Pabon has a suspect record, but so does boxing in the whole damn Central-Eastern European region. Most of us hardly bat an eye anymore when the wrong guy wins a fight or a referee makes outrageously biased calls in that region most influenced by Germany anymore. To say the fight was in Povetkin’s backyard is meaningless, as Povetkin basically burned down his own managerial and promotional house, whereas Wladimir Klischko is, even at 37, the biggest payday in Continental European boxing for the foreseeable future.
Finally, let us not forget that Russia is ranked #133 out of 145 on the worldwide corruption index, tied with countries like Iran and Guyana. It is pretty clear how a guy like Pabon winds up calling a World Heavyweight Championship fight in Moscow, and it’s not because he was there to mind Povetkin’s interest.
Klitschko is Unbeatable, Fair or Foul
American and British heavyweights thinking of challenging Wladimir Klitschko should think again, because they can’t win. Or more to the point, if they could conceivably win, they won’t be allowed to.
Wladimir Klitschko hasn’t had a fight outside of his German-backed sphere of influence since Sultan Ibragimov in 2008, and it is doubtful that any realistic amount of money could lure him into leaving Continental Europe again. He can make millions of dollars per fight without leaving his very large backyard, so why should he do so just to make a little more?
Keeping that in mind, there are two facts about fighting Dr. Steelhammer. One is that no heavyweight around today has the stuff to beat Big Wlad at his own rangy game. That is fair. The other thing to keep in mind about traveling to Europe and challenging Dr. Steelhammer is that if a fighter should get inside, Klitschko will tie him up and roughhouse him from pillar to post, and that is foul. Whatever happens, fair or foul, Klitschko will not lose another fight while he remains anywhere near his physical prime.
