Is Valuev a well-deserved Heavyweight Champion?

WBA Heavyweight Champion Nicolay Valuev, the so called "8th wonder of the world" won the sloppy fight against Monte Barrett by TKO in the 11th bout last Sunday. After watching this marathon fight between the gigantic Valuev and the comparatively small Barrett, I would say that Valuev was unimpressive in terms of championship generalship.

Valuev, being the tallest heavyweight champions in boxing history, stands 2.14 metres and weighs 328 pounds. In contrast, his opponent Barrett is only 1.91 metres tall with 222 pounds in weight. They just look like two fighters from totally two different weight classes.Valuev has everything, the power advantage, the size advantage, the weight advantage you name it. In a word, he could completely control the fight, but he didn't.

In the early rounds, Valuev rarely used his jab and moved in slow motion, leaving him unable to catch Barrett whereas Barrett fought bravely and managed to work his way inside and threw wild overhead punches to the big man. As you can see, Although Valuev is much heavier and taller than his opponent, he couldn't knock Barrett down when he did land some big punches on Barrett in the early rounds. It was until the late rounds when Barrett run out of gas did Valuev showed his power.

Valuev is slow and easy to hit with questionable power. If he faces a slightly better fighter, like Sam Peter or Hasim Rahman, he will have problems as big as he is.

By Zhenyu Li, sports writer for PD Online
The article represents the writer's views only