Crowd Boo’s Lackluster Performances
By Duddy and Klitschko
 
By Francisco Guzman
Photos: Cesar “KenMarc” Delgado
 
 
The crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York City was very unsatisfied with both the feature co featured main event which featured John Duddy (24-0-17 KO’s) who won a controversial majority decision over Walid Smichet (17-4-3-13 KO’s) and Wladimir Klitschko who beat Sultan Ibragimov to win the WBO portion heavyweight title.
 
Walid hit Duddy with everything but the kitchen sink. From round one both men were trading bombs but it was Walid who seemed to land the more authoritative punches opening up a cut on Duddy’s left eye midway through the fight. Duddy came on strong by the seventh round but it was Walid who was hitting Duddy at will with wide lefts and right hooks.
 
By the end of the fight Duddy seemed to be the battered fighter and his cut was very deep probably ending his chances of facing middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik for his world title. When the scores were read 95-95 a draw and 98-92 for Duddy the crowed booed with disbelief.
The punch stats told a different story. Duddy connected more power shots 190-188 and jabs 106-32.
 
Pound4Pound ran into Bob Arum and he had this to say about Duddy’s chances of fighting Pavlik.
“He made a fight that should have been easy, difficult. I thought Duddy won the fight. I had it 6 rounds to 4 for Duddy. I don’t think Duddy’s is going to be ready from what I am hearing on June 7th because of the cut. If Duddy’s cut badly and can’t make it we have to go with another opponent and fight Duddy down the road”.
 
In another lackluster performance Wladimir Klitschko (50-3, 44 KO's) won a unanimous decision against previously unbeaten WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov ( 22-1-1-17 KO’s) with scores of 119-110, 117-111 and 118-110. Klitschko now holds IBF, IBO and WBO heavyweight titles.
 

There was not much action throughout the fight causing the crowd to boo at times. From round one the fight was very tactical with both men doing a lot of posing. Klitschko would continually slap Ibragimov right hand down and occasionally land his straight right. Klitschko’s jab also made a difference in the fight.
 
Both men fought cautiously but it was Ibragimov who was taking chances lunging forward putting himself in position to be countered. It seemed that Klitschko’s height gave Ibragimov problems trying to land a punch.  Klitschko also claimed that Ibragimov southpaw style made it hard for him to land his straight right. This fight really wasn’t a unification bout but a road to it. Even though Klitschko is recognized as the heavyweight champion of the world it was the first step in unifying the titles. There are two more heavyweight titles to be unified, WBC heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev who takes on Samuel Peters and WBA Ruslan Chagaev. Let’s see if Klitschko will continue his quest to unify the titles and when the smoke clears lets see who is left standing as the heavyweight champion of the world.