After the fight, Dereck Chisora brawled with David Haye. Props: IronForgesIron.com
It’s fairly clear that Vitali Klitschko’s reign as heavyweight champion has not been respected by all of his opponents. Prior to his unanimous 12-round decision over Dereck Chisora Saturday, the challenger made news by slapping Klitschko across the face at the weigh-in a day before the fight.
Imagine the nerve of Chisora, smacking the champion across the face as if he was a child of the 1960s getting disciplined by his father. (Nowadays, that would never happen because if you slap your own kid across the face the police get called in and I’m not kidding.)
Klitschko (44-2) could not wait to get into the ring against Chisora and teach him a lesson for his disrespect. He pretty much did just that, setting a tone in the opening round by cutting Chisora’s lip. The bout was fairly even for the next three rounds, but then Klitschko started to pound Chisora with a constant one-fisted attack.
That one fist was Klitschko’s right hand because Klitschko claimed that he injured his left hand during the early portion of the fight. Klitschko’s strong right hand was good enough to get him the victory and allow him to retain his World Boxing Council championship.
However, even though Chisora (15-3) lost he gave a fairly good account of himself during the fight. He had several rallies where he would respond to Klitschko’s punches with his own flurries. He appeared to hurt the champion from time to time, but not enough to put the results of the fight in doubt.
Klitschko has not made any official announcements about his future, but he is 40 years old and mulling retirement. He could step away from the sweet science at any time or he could decide to stay active for 1 or 2 more fights.
If he did retire, that would leave his 35-year-old brother Wladimir as the only active fighting Klitschko. Wladimir is considered a slightly better fighter than his older brother and is the Super WBA champion. The two have constantly avoided the prospect of fighting each other throughout their professional careers.
The nervy Chisora is a strange case. The loss to Klitschko was his third in his last four fights, but he backed up his dramatic slap by fighting with the same type of reckless abandon that he showed during the weigh-in.
After the fight with Klitschko, Chisora and former World Boxing Association champion David Haye got into a dispute with both men coming to blows. Chisora felt threatened when he saw that Haye had a bottle in his hand, so he knocked it away and then started throwing punches.
Chisora clearly has a lot of fight left in him and should remain a decent contender and a marketable opponent.
Just a reminder that we will have the stream of the UFC 124 post-fight presser here after tonight’s event. It should be live around 1:00 am ET, but check in after the broadcast ends as it may start a few minutes early.