Boxing Betting: Can Chisora spring a shock against Klitschko?

Boxing Betting / Ralph Ellis / 15 February 2012 / Leave a Comment

Can Chisora conquer Klitschko?

"The more I see of Chisora, finally getting a bit of limelight, the more I like about his brash style."

Ralph Ellis looks ahead to Saturday night's big fight and asks if we could see a brash Brit bring about the end of the Vitali era.

Back when I worked for the Daily Star, our boxing writer of the time Ken Gorman's biggest battles tended to be with the accountants.

The men who sat in an office and signed off the budget were jealous of the idea that he spent half his time flying back and forth to Las Vegas or New Jersey, and they weren't too keen on the flight and hotel costs either. Eventually they got their way and stopped him from going to a world title contest in Tokyo.

The sports editor backed his attempt to appeal against the decision, but lost. "What's the point?" asked the managing editor. "It's Mike Tyson, he's won all his previous 37 fights, and stopped Carl Williams last time out in the first round. We're not paying to send Ken half way round the world just to write that Tyson's put some other bum on the canvas."

So Ken, along with several other of Fleet Street's top boxing men who'd lost the same argument with their offices, was at home when Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in the tenth round to create one of the biggest boxing stories of last century.

It's a story worth telling as you approach Dereck Chisora's meeting with Vitali Klitschko in Munich on Saturday night. It's a fight that looks totally predictable. The elder and arguably better one of the two Ukrainian brothers who rule the heavyweight division is [1.09] to add the Brit to his long list of victims and on the face of it even that's probably too big a price.

But - and here's the very big but - somebody, some day, is going to end Vitali's near eight-year reign as the WBC world champion and when it does happen it will be every bit as much a shock as when Buster Douglas put Tyson on the floor. Most of all it will be a shock to Vitali himself, and I just wonder if he isn't seeing exactly what's coming his way on Saturday night.

Chisora has been doing the rounds with all the usual hype. He says he'll win in the eighth (handy if he's right because you can back that at anywhere between [100.00] and [1000.00]). Meanwhile Klitschko's pre-fight press conferences have been all about politics. There could be a Syria style uprising in the Ukraine, he's warned (not good news for the tourist industry ahead of Euro 2012, but there you go).

It suggests a 40-year-old who has maybe got too sure of himself, picking what he sees as another easy contest to extend his stay at the top. And the more I see of Chisora, finally getting a bit of limelight, the more I like about his brash style. "The Klitschkos don't like a fight," he says. "The psychology of the Klitschkos is to be nice to you before and then destroy you in the ring. So I have to take it to Vitali - without a doubt. Vitali don't like going backwards. I've got to go at him from the start, fight inside and hurt him."

After twice being lined up to fight Wladimir and seeing the contest called off at the last minute, Chisora also has the vital quality that he genuinely thinks Klitschko might be just so slightly scared of what he could do. "There's a Rocky theme going on in my life," says Chisora. "You never know what might happen next."

Exactly. As a triumphant sports editor explained to the accountants all those years ago: "The whole point about news is you don't know when or where it will happen." I fancy it's worth at the very least a back-to-lay bet on Chisora to see if the answer is in Munich this Saturday night.

Five things you might not know about Dereck Chisora

1. Born December 1983 in Zimbabwe, he was 16 when he came to England to join his mother who had already moved here and had found him a place in a public school.

2. That didn't last, and he got into trouble hanging round his home in Hampstead with kids who involved him in petty crime. It was a probation officer who suggested he go to Finchley Boxing Club.

3. He still speaks the Bantu language of Shona and stays in touch with his African roots.

4. He's an antique collector who loves old-style English furniture but also buys quirky items. He's got an old style parking meter and a red phone box.

5. He chose his 'Del Boy' nickname and Only Fools and Horses walk-on music because he was selling cars to make extra money in his early days after turning pro.

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