A very tough autograph to obtain from former
Heavyweight champion and future Hall of Famer Wladimir Klitschko.
Wladimir Klitschko £95.00
On April 22, 2006, in Mannheim, Germany, Klitschko
again defeated Chris Byrd, this time by technical knockout,
in a contest for the IBF heavyweight championship. Referee
Wayne Kelly stopped the fight in the seventh round after
a knockdown. Klitschko then defeated mandatory challenger
Ray Austin on March 10, 2007, at the SAP Arena in Mannheim,
Germany by a second-round knockout with four consecutive
left hooks to Austin's head. Wladimir did not use his right
hand once during the fight, doing all his work with his
left jab and left hook. Wladimir then avenged one of his
previous losses as he defeated Lamon Brewster on July 7,
2007, in Cologne. Brewster's corner asked the referee to
stop the fight at the end of the sixth round. It was later
revealed that Klitschko fought most of the fight with a
broken middle finger on his left hand.
Klitschko defeated WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov
at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 23,
2008, to unify the IBF and WBO heavyweight titles. The Klitschko-Ibragimov
fight was the first heavyweight unification since Holyfield-Lewis
in 1999.
Klitschko's mandatory challenger for the IBF title is Aleksander
Povetkin of Russia and his mandatory challenger for the
WBO title is Tony Thompson. Klitschko now holds two of the
four major heavyweight belts. Samuel Peter is the WBC holder,
while Ruslan Chagaev is the WBA champ. He is scheduled to
defend his IBF, IBO, and WBO belts against Thompson July
12th, 2008.
