The only person in boxing giving Polish challenger Albert Sosnowski a chance against WBC Heavyweight Champion Vitali Klitschko this weekend was Albert Sosnowski. Therefore, it came as a bit of a surprise when, ten rounds into the title fight in Gelsenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany on Saturday afternoon, Sosnowski was still hanging around.
Despite sporting a record of 45-2-1, Sosnowski had never beaten a legitimate contender and even lost to journeyman Zuri Lawrence. Klitschko, on the other hand, had never been decisively beaten in the ring in 41 fights – his only two losses coming on his decision to retire with an injury against Chris Byrd and a stoppage on cuts against Lennox Lewis, boxing’s last undisputed Heavyweight Champion.
Sporting a beard for the fight, Klitschko, who has a PhD, fought almost studiously, taking his time to dissect the challenger. He landed nothing particularly damaging in the first round, choosing to stick with the occasional jab and sweeping with half-hearted hooks to the head of Sosnowski.
Sosnowski got in a right hand to the chin of Vitali to begin the second round, but Klitschko barely flinched. The challenger added a one-two to the body of Klitschko but caught a straight right hand and a jab through the guard in return. Vitali later got in a straight right and another right over the side of the head. A left hook also landed for the Ukrainian giant before they traded right hands.
Sosnowski fought well in round three, banging to the body and scoring with flush jabs to the face. Throwing the same shots, however, Klitschko seemed to do more damage. With a minute left in the round, Vitali walked into a left hook from the challenger that caught his attention if nothing else. Point-wise, Sosnowski had a good round but absorbed more punishment and likely lost the round for that reason.
For the early rounds, Sosnowski had shown that he had come to fight. For the rest of the fight, Klitschko showed that he could still fight. That is, the first scenario begot the other, and, beginning in round four, Vitali started letting his right hand go in response to Sosnowski’s surprising success with the jab.
After being hit flush with a jab in the fifth, Klitschko knocked Sosnowski back into the ropes with a left hook, having to earn the respect of a challenger to whom boxing pundits gave no respect whatsoever. Sosnowski landed his own clean right hand later in the round, and the crowd’s puzzled reaction was audible.
Sosnowski knocked Klitschko’s head back with jabs throughout round six. The problem was that it took only one jab from Vitali to knock the challenger’s entire body back. Growing frustrated, perhaps even embarrassed, Klitschko seemed to pick a fight with Sosnowski after the round by staring at him as they passed one another. Sosnowski stared back, and Vitali felt the need to stop in his tracks. Sosnowski didn’t move either but chose to stand and stare back at the champion until Referee Jay Nady sent them their separate ways.
Intimidation certainly wasn’t a factor, but Klitschko’s heavier hands were. Halfway through the fight, the power punches he dropped on Sosnowski had left the Pole’s nose bloodied. And the worst was yet to come. With Sosnowski continuing to jab – quite successfully – in round seven, Vitali answered with jarring left hooks. Albert kept coming, undeterred, and paid for his perseverance by eating hard uppercuts.
After trading jabs for the first minute of the eighth, Klitschko landed a right that moved Sosnowski back, but the challenger answered with a hard right hand of his own that turned Vitali’s head. Klitschko then dropped his hands and hit Sosnowski with a right and a left hook. Another hook followed, but the challenger took it and walked into another left-right combination. They traded right hands just before the bell, and Vitali eyed Sosnowski suspiciously as they headed to their corners.
Klitschko started looking for the kill in round nine, softening Sosnowski up with straight right hands, many of them moving the challenger back on unsteady legs. With less than ten seconds to go, Vitali buckled Sosnowski’s legs with a right to the head, but Albert bounced back upright. With the crowd roaring in approval, Klitschko raised his glove as if calling his shot and landed another straight right that sent Sosnowski slumping against the ropes, saved only by the bell.
As he headed to his corner, the defiant Sosnowski acted as though the German crowd’s cheers were for him and raised his glove. Even if everyone else could sense the end was near, the challenger chose to ignore it and kept fighting.
With a minute left in round ten, Klitschko again had Sosnowski doubling over from right hands. The challenger backed into a corner with his hands down and seemed to glance at his corner momentarily. Vitali landed another hard right, but Sosnowski remained standing. The next right saw him double over again, both hands down and nearly touching the canvas. Nady watched closely, looking for the moment when Sosnowski’s body surrendered.
Another right hand from Klitschko landed across the face of Sosnowski and finally sent him collapsing into the corner, almost lifeless as his head tilted to the side. That was more than enough for Nady to stop the fight, and Sosnowski remained down in the corner a moment, confirming it was the right call to make.
When his corner men invaded the ring and helped him to his feet, Sosnowski was cut over the left eye but nodding in response to their questions. As soon as he was able, he made his way to Vitali, where the two congratulated one another.
As expected, Klitschko came out the inevitable winner but hardly impressed with his performance against an opponent so out of his league on paper that the fight was largely regarded as a farce in the boxing community. Whether uninspired by the opponent or finally fading at age 38, Vitali did not look the part of the best heavyweight in the world – a tag many had placed on him coming into the bout.
If age is the excuse for how often he was hit by Sosnowski and for how long it took him to dispel the challenger, then it would seem Vitali has made the right decision in announcing that he will retire at the end of 2010. Unfortunately, that leaves him with one, maybe two fights before calling it a career.
The boxing world has been clamoring for a significant heavyweight fight, and, if Vitali wants to be a part of it, his options are down to one: WBA Heavyweight Champion David Haye. Haye has yet to negotiate a bout with Vitali’s younger brother, IBF and WBO Champion Wladimir Klitschko. One of Haye’s continuously changing excuses for not fighting Wladimir is that he would prefer to fight Vitali.
Given Vitali’s lackluster performance against Sosnowski, Haye could be expected to jump on the opportunity to battle the older Klitschko brother in his next bout. Vitali has said that he wants the fight, so there is no reason to think it can’t be made in 2010, finally igniting some excitement back into a division that has lacked it since Lewis’ retirement in 2004.
