Klitschko halts Fast Eddie

IBF, WBO and Ring Heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KOs) successfully retained his titles by stopping Philadelphia native Eddie Chambers (35-2, 18 KOs) with 5 seconds left in the bout.

Esprit Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany hosted a crowd of 51,000 Saturday night that was fought in typical Klitschko fashion – left jab and a pummeling right. Chambers, WBO’s mandatory challenger, showed glimpses of aggressiveness in the first half and even tried a few WWE moves against the Ukrainian. A second round body slam was Chambers’ highlight of the night. His highly advertised quickness was nowhere to be found against the longer and stronger defending champion.

Emanuel Steward had to push Klitschko to finish the fight with a compelling win instead of the usual one-sided decision. Wladimir finally answered the call in the 12th round. A wicked left hook knocked the lights out of Chambers in his own corner and slumped to his left over the lower ropes face down in the canvas. Fast Eddie was fast asleep.

A series of interesting fights in boxing’s supposedly premiere division are scheduled in the next few weeks.

WBA titlist David Haye will defend his title against perennial mandatory challenger John Ruiz on April 3 in Manchester. The elder Klitschko, Vitali, is expected to keep his WBC title on May 29 against Albert Sosnowski in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Tomasz Adamek against recent Vitali victim Chris Arreola is on HBO from Ontario, California on April 24.

Haye is expected to come out unscathed against Ruiz and Adamek is the early favorite against Arreola. Any of the Klitschkos against the British and Polish bombers will be an interesting fight to look forward to before the end of the year.

Other title news: Tajbert promoted by the WBC

WBC interim Super Featherweight titleholder Vitali Tajbert was promoted to the full WBC title upon Humberto Soto’s move to the Lightweight division.

Soto won the vacant title against former holder David Diaz in the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey main undercard. The 135-lb. title was declared vacant when Edwin Valero was relegated to champion-in-recess because of injuries in his title retaining bout against Antonio DeMarco last month. Valero’s plans to move up to the super lightweight class also contributed to the WBC decision.

After a Tajbert unanimous decision upset win over Humberto Mauro Gutierrez last November, Tajbert was Soto’s mandatory challenger for the 130-lb. title. A Tajbert-Gutierrez rematch is slated in Budapest, Hungary on May 29. That’ll be Tajbert’s first defense of his newly acquired title.

Tajbert was born in the Kazakhstan and migrated to Stuttgart, Germany. He won the bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics.


Dennis Carreon can be reached at dcarreon@8countnews.com