Despite being 37 and seemingly more focussed on his golf game as opposed to his ring prowess, Sanders has a ton of punching power. He can throw. So I guess this comes down to whether or not Sanders is that powerful a puncher, or Klitschko has suddenly developed a glass jaw. It's tough to claim that a journeyman fighter from South Africa possesses that lethal a shot, though. This fight really hurts the Ukraine Train.
I'd only seen Wlady fight once before (when he kicked the shite out of Mercer) and I, despite being a novice ring analyst, thought he looked solid. A 6'7 frame with long reach and surprisingly good footwork and mobility - none of this was on display against Sanders. He looked like a plodding fool who ran out of ideas once he got hit with a couple of big blows. To his credit, he didn't stay down, but that's not really much to put on the resume when you get dropped four times in 207 seconds.
I was also under the impression that Wladimir was the lesser of the two Klitschkoian fighters, as Vitaly is the #1 ranked contender in the WBC and WBA. I know Vitaly got served by Chris Byrd (does all this now make Byrd the most legitimate challenger to Lewis?) - so I'm not sure how big this loss really is to the world of Heavyweight Contenders. Although it probably messes with HBO signing Wlady to a 9-fight deal.
Wladimir walked into the ring looking like he was on the end of a 24 hour cocaine binge. Wlado had the time to light a ciggarette and still duck those really, really slow lefts.
