By Niall Doran
Last night in boxing results starting in Hamburg Germany, Wladamir Klitschko retained all four of his heavyweight titles with a decent boxing display over previously unbeaten giant from Poland Mariusz Wach. Klitschko used his superior speed and boxing ability all night to beat Wach to the punch. However he did succumb to a great right hand in the fifth round to send him dashing back into the ropes which brought the crowd to their feet but used his experience to hold on for the bell. He ran out clear winner in the end on a wide points margin without much hassle bar one or two punches he didn’t need to take. The impressive thing for me is he did all this without long time mentor Manny Steward. Going into the fight a lot of people questioned how he would react to not having Manny there but Klitschko showed his strength of character and experience by boxing beautifully and sticking to his usual chess like game plan. Realistically there is only a handful of challengers out there with David Price and Tyson Fury being perhaps the two rising stars looking to dethrone him going into 2013.
Stateside in LA in other boxing results, Nathan Cleverly made an impressive American debut by defending his WBO Light Heavyweight belt, all be it to unheralded late replacement Shaun Hawk, stopping him in the eighth round. Plenty of action was going on outside the ring as Cleverly was walked to the ring by actors Micky Rourke and Vinne Jones, and also fellow Welshman and singing icon Sir Tom Jones which was sure to help him in his attempt to gain more US exposure. Cleverly proved much too good for Hawk although at times he appeared willing to take unnecessary punishment which has become a trait of the Cleverly style it seems. Cleverly consistently beat his opponent to the punch landing head shots for the first 4 rounds. He began to turn up the heat in the middle rounds switching to the body in his attacks and in the 7th round put Hawk down twice by the sheer volume of his punches, with the referee calling halt to the action in the 8th after Hawk was down again. Hawk had never been stopped before in 26 fights so a good performance all in all by the Welshman. Everything is left open next year in 2013 for a unification fight with one of the champions or potentially even a match up with the great Bernard Hopkins!
