By Don Steinberg, ESPN.com
Eddie Chambers has a rep for being too defensive, too cautious. That's how he lost a fight he was winning against Alexander Povetkin in Berlin in January 2008.
During a media call earlier this week, I asked Chambers and his trainer Rob Murray if they watched the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight, which seemed to be a perfect blueprint for how a great defensive fighter can strap on the protective earmuffs and not beat a big puncher. Other reporters seemed concerned, too, that Chambers might go into similar lockdown mode, blocking Wladimir Klitschko's punches without returning enough fire.
"Me and Eddie talked about that," Murray said. "We saw part of that fight. Everybody that you see fight that [defensive] style is landlocked. You're not going to be able to punch with any significance with your hands up in front of your face like that. That's a situation we learned in the Povetkin fight. If you've seen any of Eddie's fight after the Povetkin fight, you notice that he's not doing that anymore."
Chambers promised to find an offensive gear.
"I'm gonna have to find a way to kick the door in," he said. "Obviously, there are times I'm going to pick up the aggression, and other times I'm going to have to wait. This is a chess match, not checkers. You have to be patient or else you might get checkmated."
Translation: checkmated, against a Klitschko at least, means being punched really, really hard.
Source: espn.go.com
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