Klitschko outclasses and outpoints Ibragimov!

Wladimir Klitschko retained his IBF/IBO heavyweight titles and won the WBO belt by defeating Sultan Ibragimov with an extremely cautious, yet dominant unanimous decision win at Madison Square Garden.

Klitschko's primary weapon was the left land; he couldn't miss Ibragimov with that shot. So much for Ibragimov taking Klitschko's height away. As I said before the fight, Wladimir Klitschko is a tall man with amateur experience. Paul Williams is a tall man with no amateur experience and gave his height away when he lost to Carlos Quintana. Ibragimov was not as fortunate to accomplish the same feat tonight.

Occasionally Klitschko would fire his signature right hand that has put so many previous victims to sleep, but rarely did he fire that punch tonight. Even trainer Manny Steward expressed his disenchantment, implying, "you shouldn't even be going twelve rounds with this guy." Had Klitschko thrown as many right hands at Ibragimov as he did against Chris Byrd two years ago, my prediction of a 9th round knockout may have very well come true. Yet, Klitschko elected to fight a safety first fight and won on points instead.

Official scores were 119-110, 117-111, and 118-110. Boxing Chronicles scored it 119-109, giving Ibragimov round 1.