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Wladimir Klitschko vs Alex Leapai agreed to for April in Germany

Wladimir Klitschko has his next opponent lined up, as he'll face Alex Leapai in three months in Germany.

Martin Rose

Wladimir Klitschko has agreed to terms and avoided a January 19 purse bid to face Alex Leapai this April in Germany, a sort of return to the scrap heap for Klitschko, who has run out of worthy challengers for the most part.

Leapai (30-4-3, 24 KO) fought his way into this bout with a November upset of Denis Boytsov, but it's hard to imagine the 34-year-old Samoan-Australian having any real chance at doing what so many other similar or better fighters have not come close to doing in about a decade now. He's a decent fighter and the win over Boytsov was convincing, and this is a better opponent than, say, Jean-Marc Mormeck was, but Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO) really takes no risk with this fight.

Leapai, known as "The Lionheart," is a six-foot-tall battler who's been fighting around 245 pounds in his recent outings. He's got a 75-inch reach and there's really nothing special about him. He's not really fast, he's not a particularly good boxer, he's a good but not huge puncher, and with Klitschko, the key is actually getting to him. How can Leapai do that? Chances are, he cannot.

This is a major mismatch on paper, like many of Wladimir's fights anymore. It's really nothing against Leapai, he's just not this level of fighter. But this is what's next for Wlad.

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