Titles unified: Klitschko dominates Ibragimov

Posted: Sat Feb 23 11:59 PM

New York, NY (Sports Network) - Wladimir Klitschko captured the unified heavyweight title with a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision over Sultan Ibragimov Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

The 31-year-old Klitschko (50-3) won by scores of 119-110, 118-110 and 117-111, using a dominant jab to keep Ibragimov (22-1-1) at bay throughout the fight.

In the first heavyweight unification bout since Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis met in 1999, Klitschko made the fourth defense of the IBF title he won over Chris Byrd with a seventh-round technical knockout on April 22, 2006. He also added the WBO belt from Ibragimov, who was making the second defense of that title after he captured it from Shannon Briggs in a unanimous decision on June 2, 2007.

Klitschko, from Kiev, Ukraine, landed 148-of-348 punches, compared to 97- of-316 for Ibragimov. The jab connections though were more pronounced as Klitschko connected on 108-of-245, compared to just 16-of-137 for Ibragimov.

Klitschko now holds two of the four major heavyweight belts. Oleg Maskaev is the WBC holder, while Ruslan Chagaev is the WBA champ. Maskaev faces Samuel Peter for the WBC title on March 8 in Cancun.

During the eighth round, Klitschko landed a hard right and pounced on the opportunity as Ibragimov slipped down, although it was not ruled a knockdown. However, Klitschko kept coming with a straight right hand flush to the face inside of two minutes left. Ibragimov continued to have trouble penetrating Klitschko's chopping defense of his left hand.

At that point, Klitschko was clearly ahead on all scorecards and was scoring at will with his jab. Ibragimov landed two right hooks in the final 20 seconds of the round.

However, in round nine, Klitschko used a couple of hard right hands to drive his opponent to the corner, but despite Ibragimov seemingly going down, no knockdown was credited. At this point, Ibragimov was seemingly trying to hold on, as he continued to suffer from jab punches from Klitschko.

The only real highlight for Ibragimov came in round 11 when he blatantly tackled Klitschko, driving his shoulder into him and powering him to the canvas.

Then, at the end of the 11th round, Klitschko landed a vicious left hook, putting the exclamation mark on his decisive victory.

Klitschko had last fought on July 7, avenging an April 2004 loss to Lamon Brewster.

Ibragimov followed up his title win with another unanimous decision over Holyfield on October 13, 2007.