Emanuel Steward's first phone call Sunday was from heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
"He said, 'Did you see that (Eddie) Chambers beat (Alexander) Dimitrenko?' " said Steward, who trains Klitschko. "I said, 'Chambers beat Dimitrenko?' I was a little surprised, but not really that surprised."
Chambers is 6-foot-1 and weighed 208 1/4 pounds when he squared off with Dimitrenko on Saturday in Germany. Dimitrenko is 6-7 and came in at 253 1/2. But Steward intimated that the skills of many of these bigger European fighters don't match their size, so their size advantage shrinks a bit. He said that is not the case with Klitschko.
"Wladimir is not winning all these fights just because he is big, but because he is a good fighter," Steward said.
Steward said Klitschko did not have any particular comment on the performance of Chambers, who won a majority decision.
"I think the most important thing is he was just looking at who he was going to fight with all these mandatories," Steward said Wednesday via telephone.
Alexander Povetkin is the mandatory challenger to Klitschko's International Boxing Federation belt, and the third-ranked challenger to Klitschko's World Boxing Organiztion crown. Dimitrenko was ranked No. 1 by the WBO, but Chambers is now that organization's mandatory challenger.
Well, if Steward had his druthers, Klitschko's next fight would not come against Povetkin or Chambers. It would come against Southern California's Chris Arreola, who is ranked in the top 5 of both governing bodies; he is also ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Council, whose champion is Vitali Klitschko.
"I told (Wladimir) the fight most people are interested in is Chris Arreola," Steward said. "There has been a lot of talk about that. Arreola is a big kid. He has that attitude. Some fighters get intimidated (by Wladimir) and get too technical. But Arreola is going to be more aggressive."
Steward said that after Arreola he would like to see Klitschko fight fellow champion Nicolai Valuev.
"I don't know what they're going to do," Steward said of Klitschko and his advisors. "What people are more into is Arreola more than anything."
Steward also said, "I think we're going to find out in the next few days what's going to happen with these two mandatories."
Boxers have been asked - or paid - to step aside while a champion takes on an opponent who is not a mandatory. Arreola may be ranked No. 1 by the WBC, but that has nothing to do with Wladimir Klitschko.
On the heels of our conversation with Steward, we called Dan Goossen, who happens to promote Chambers and Arreola. Goossen said that he didn't want to get into too many what ifs regarding whether he would consider asking Chambers to step aside for Arreola.
"I will cross that bridge when we come to it," he said.
Goossen did have a thought on Steward's assessment of Arreola.
"If there is one thing I agree with Emanuel on is that Arreola wouldn't be intimidated by any heavyweight out there," Goossen said. ......
http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=20909
