Wladimir Klitschko vs Bryant Jennings

This year, Little Brother himself, Wladimir Klitschko will make his long-awaited (by some anyway) return Stateside to face Bryant Jennings in the Barclays Centre, Brooklyn, New York. Jennings, an honest professional, who is currently uneaten, certainly seems to be out of his depth against the World heavyweight Champion. He came through the fight against Irish Mike Perez with a razor-thin decision, and with all due respect to Perez, that is not inspiring form heading into the most important fight of his career. For his part, Wladimir is coming off a sensational knockout against Pulev. It was the kind of performance which older fans have been demanding from him for a very long time. It was short, sharp, and absolutely ruthless. That is the way you beat lesser opposition. Looking at the difference in quality, both of opposition, and of the quality of victory, it is certainly difficult to make a compelling case for Jennings to even challenge Wladimir really. He does, however have freakishly long arms, and if that can translate to an interesting jab contest he might at the very least force Klitschko into pulling out a Plan B other than jab, clinch, straight right… repeat ad nausea. Pity he now also seems to have developed, or to be more fair, unleashed a meaty left hook. It certainly left poor Pulev first befuddled, and then knocked out of his mind. My prediction is a typical Wladimir performance where he carries his opponent for a few rounds to ensure the crowd got good money’s worth of entertainment for the night. At some point, though, the anvil drops, and Jennings will end up on his haunches. This is meant as no disrespect to Jennings, but this is the highest quality of opposition possible, and he certainly hasn’t proven himself beyond doubt two or three notches lower. Hopefully, once this slightly tedious mandatory is over and done with, and Deontay Wilder has hopefully seen off what is increasingly looking like a Tyson Fury match up, we get what boxing really needs – a unified World heavyweight championship bout, and with it – an undisputed world heavyweight champion.