By Scoop Malinowski

Is Nikolai Valuev unbeatable? Is the seven-foot, 320-pound Goliath simply too large and talented enough to conquer any David who comes his way? With only the one narrow points loss to Ruslan Chagaev on his impressive ledger which now stands at 49-1 with 28 KO’s after the points win over John Ruiz this past weekend, Boxinginsider.com asked several boxing trainers such as Emanuel Steward, Teddy Atlas, Floyd Mayweather Sr. and others what their specific strategy would be to bring down the Giant.

Joey Gamache: “I think you have to somehow camouflage your way through in there and cut around from the angles. It’s like, coming around and just hitting him from each end. I think that’s gonna be it. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy. It’s the element of surprise. He’s not gonna see it as much. It could be a pivot off the back door and a left hook, and it catches something. I don’t know of you can read into that, but it can be something like a right hand camouflaged, thrown around just to put it in his face and pivot around and hit him with a left hook. To the head, to the chin, body, wherever. It may not be a meaningful punch at your face but it blocks your view enough to get me around. Listen, if I hit you with something clean, you can get hurt. On the other end, I don’t necessarily think that’s gonna be the only way to beat him. I think somebody’s gonna hit him and it’s gonna hurt him. Then once he gets hurt, he’s gonna go. I don’t think we’re dealing with a great athlete. He’s a big guy, a good guy - he’s a world champion - but I think he’s a beatable guy.”

John Scully: “Well, I think a guy would have to fight with a hands-high defense, so that he could make Valuev throw a lot of punches, but not have to take his full power in the process. I don’t care what anybody says, a guy that big is not going to keep up a Holyfield-in his younger days-type of pace for 12 rounds. You have to use his size against him. Make him have to turn his body and look for you. Don’t let him set his feet. Try and outpoint him until - if and when - the chance comes - when he slows down - to land power shots.”

Roger Bloodworth: “Well, I don’t think he’s that good. He’s big, he slaps with a lot of those punches. But when you weigh over 300 pounds, a slap can hurt you. When I watched him fight Monte, the mistake Monte made was after he threw his punches, he would bend over to his right and the guy would just slap him on the side of the head with his right hand. Depending on who’s fighting him, how tall he is, how big he is, your strategies have to change. He doesn’t look like he has a lot of boxing skills, so a tall guy with long range should be able to beat him with a jab, one-twos all day long. I actually thought Monte might have hurt him with one shot so I don’t think his chin is that good. And I heard when he used to train down in Australia, the cruiserweights were dropping him. So I don’t know. If you got a short guy fighting him, just stay up close with him, take his power away from him. Hit him in the body, knees, elbows [laughs], wherever you can hit him. Bring him down to your height - if you got a puncher. You can’t run from him. You’ve gotta fight him. But you’ve got to be smart when you fight him. You can’t throw two punches and stay there and get hit. You have to know where you’re going after you punch.”

Colin Morgan (trained Valuev victim Larry Donald): “The strategy I used with Larry Donald was attack the guy and I think it worked. Larry took the fight to him, hit him with the biggest right hands ever. Because of his size he really didn’t get dropped. But if you can really take the fight to him, you stand a better chance - instead of giving him the leverage. Because he’s so big and his arms are so long, it’s hard for him to fight close. So if you could really attack him, I think you could beat him. (Larry didn’t have enough power to beat him?) Larry hit him with the biggest shots but that guy’s just too big. Yeah, he didn’t have the power to really, I mean, the guy was really busted up. He was bleeding and everything but he just wasn’t going anywhere. Instead of running away, I think you need to stand your ground, get under that jab and work to his body, come over the top and tie him up. Keep the fight close instead of at range where he could just use that jab and try to nail you at the end of his punches.”

Mark Breland: “I think a guy who can move, throw a lot of feints, make him commit himself - he could beat him. He’s too tall to be very coordinated-wise. So I think you throw a lot of feints at him, make him commit himself. I think you can catch him like that. I think a guy like James Toney but he’s just too small. But he has the style. Make him commit himself and throw punches but he’s too small.”

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: “How can you beat him? He ain’t nothin’ but a walkin’ mummy! He’s a dead man. How can you beat him? I’ll whoop him. I’m just tellin’ ya, I don’t care how big he is. Only way I might get hurt is if he throws a punch and falls over me. I mean, as far as him, forget about it. Forget about the novice, he ain’t even a good sub novice. You know what a sub novice is? Novice is when you don’t know sh**, a sub novice really don’t know sh**! That’s what a sub novice is. I’m telling you, he ain’t that good to me. I don’t even know how in the world he got to be champion. All it shows you is how bad the heavyweight division is.”

Tom Yankello: “There’s ways to beat all them guys. If you have a guy that’s very versatile, like Calvin Brock, fight on the inside and outside. Get on the inside for a while, if he lays on you and puts too much weight on, fight him in and out, box him in and out. I saw him open against Monte. But Monte can’t really punch. Monte did some things in that fight that shows - if you have a guy that boxes a little better than Monte, hits a little harder to get his respect, first round Monte I think rocked him - I don’t think he’s an easy fight.”

Don House: “My strategy to fight a big man like that is - see, most fighters train throwing horizontal punches. Then when they fight somebody big, they start shooting punches like this (up). We don’t train like this. Wherever a fighter is comfortable throwing punches, if that punch lands in his chest, shoot it there. Any time you get yourself as a fighter out of your normal position, you’re setting yourself up for a fall. If your horizontal punch lands in his navel, shoot it at his navel. Eventually you’re gonna bring him down anyway. Big guys - forget about the head. It’s too tall to hit him in the head. The body doesn’t move. To break a guy down like that, I’m just for 10-12 rounds shooting shots at his body. All night long. And to get him to reach down at me. The harder fight is on the taller guy. Because they have to punch down. Remember, they also train throwing horizontal punches. So as the short fighter, you make him punch down. Now the game is even harder for him. See, it’s easy to come down to up, it’s hard to come up from down. That’s a lot of work. So that’s my strategy to beat Valuev.”

Emanuel Steward: “Just go out and just let him just jab. He can’t even get away from a jab. When I saw the fight with Valuev - and I was doing the TV broadcast - and I got back to the (Klitschko training) camp (in Pennsylvania), I said, What do you think? And Wladimir said, I would have a lot of fun with him [smiles]. And that’s all he said. I would have a lot of fun. It’s not even worth going into specific details. He doesn’t punch, meaning he doesn’t have any punching power. No footwork and no movement at all. And just, I’m looking at, Here’s a hyper guy (Barrett) just runnin’ in and throwing over a wild right over and over, slingin’ a punch, not throwing an overhand, just slingin’. And he never did have enough ring intelligence to take a little step back and hit the guy with an uppercut. I mean, he was every time just letting the guy hit him all over the shoulders. I mean, it was just the guy (Barrett) just punched himself out. (Valuev) really didn’t do nothing to the guy himself. To me, he never landed clean punches. It was easy. The guy fell down from exhaustion and that’s all. And I don’t think it’s worth even going into no specifics anything.”

Teddy Atlas: “I think his size and whatever mentally that does to some weaker guys, I guess that’s his greatest assets. His bulk and whatever that means to some people, that allows that to mean something. He’s a little bit better than someone like Primo Carnera, of just pure size. He’s a little better than that, he’s not uncoordinated. But he’s a guy with obviously not a high level of skill. And a guy that can give him movement and attack him on the sides, and you’re not afraid to attack when you’re supposed to - obviously he’ll become a lot smaller.”