LAS VEGAS – Seth Mitchell, when asked the lessons learned by the risky punches he absorbed early in a victory over Chazz Witherspoon last weekend, gave an explanation straight from his football roots.

“I need to keep my head on a swivel,” Mitchell said.

The former Michigan State linebacker has climbed within a few short rungs of a shot at boxing's heavyweight championship, but the timing is delicate.

Fighters are lining up for the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, who have dominated the heavyweights for a decade. But they also are jockeying for position behind the Klitschkos, with hopes of avoiding them altogether, in anticipation of a day when Vitali, 40, and Wladimir, 36, will give up their stranglehold on the division.

Which direction Mitchell chooses -- or has chosen for him -- should be determined in the next few months, although Wladimir Klitschko already has expressed interest in fighting him, and he said he would prefer to fight one of the Klitschkos than wait to pick up a championship belt off their post-retirement scrap heap.

Whether that actually happens will rely on whether Mitchell's business crew feels the same way, a group which includes Al Haymon, the behind-the-scenes power broker who also advises Floyd Mayweather and seems able to squeeze anything he wants out of HBO; and Golden Boy Promotions.

Mitchell (25-0-1, 19 KOs) didn't take up amateur boxing until 2006, the year after knee injuries ended his football career prematurely. He turned pro two years later.

That kind of inexperience against the Klitschkos could be extraordinarily difficult to overcome. But Mitchell has surprised a lot of people with his quick ring rise, his football background has translated well to the rigors of boxing training, and he said he would rather beat one of the Klitschkos than wait out what is sure to be a muddled heavyweight picture after they retire.

“I'm here to fight the best,” Mitchell said. “I know I'm a few fights away from the Klitschko brothers, but if they have the belts, that's who I want to fight. I want to dethrone the champion. I'm not afraid of any man.”

Mitchell, 29, said it's a "reasonable expectation" that he'll be ready to fight one of the brothers in 2013.

“The older one (Vitali) may be gone,” by the time he fights for a title, Mitchell said, “but the younger one (Wladimir) will probably still be here and I would love the opportunity to fight him.”

Mitchell is in Las Vegas for Saturday's Miguel Cotto-Mayweather fight, one week after he scored a third-round technical knockout of Chazz Witherspoon in an HBO-televised fight.

Witherspoon is a heavyweight gatekeeper, a 32-3 fighter who never has defeated anyone who challenged for the world title. Yet both of his conquerors before Mitchell received title shots, Chris Arreola and Tony Thompson, the latter of whom is preparing for a July rematch against Wladimir Klitschko.

For a few moments in the first round last Saturday night in Atlantic City, N.J., there was some concern that Witherspoon might slam the gate and shut out Mitchell from the title picture, as he repeatedly ripped the Brandywine, Md., native with right hands.

Mitchell survived the round by clinching repeatedly, never left his feet, and dominated the rest of the way before stopping Witherspoon in the third round, after a pair of knockdowns.

“That was the first time I had to face that kind of adversity,” Mitchell said. “Before the fight, if you had asked me what I was going to do (in that situation), I would have told you that that's how I would have handled myself. But until you get put in that situation, you really don't know. So it was really gratifying, for me, to see myself perform like that.”

Mitchell acknowledged it was “hard to watch myself take those clean shots” when he reviewed the fight.

“I don't want to have to continue to take shots like that,” Mitchell said. “But it let me know that I can take a shot. Yeah, I was dazed, but that's a 240-pound man.

“It taught me that even though I was dazed, I still kept my composure. When he came close, I grabbed. I wasn't too macho. So even though I haven't been fighting a lot, it showed my experience, my boxing I.Q., not to go out there and try to brawl. I tried to get close, I held, and I just wanted to survive that first round.”

Mitchell said the next few months will be critical and he would like to face some taller fighters, presumably because Wladimir Klitschko is 6-feet-6 and Vitali Klitschko is 6-7.

“Sometimes, you get away from the basics, so I'll go back to the basics -- keeping your hands up, not keeping your head in the same spot more than one or two seconds -- just good old basic fundamentals,” Mitchell said. “Fight taller fighters, and just go back to the basics.”

Mitchell-Witherspoon was more than just an exciting heavyweight fight. It also stole the HBO-televised show from a dreadfully dull main event in which Chad Dawson won a light heavyweight title from the venerable Bernard Hopkins.

Mitchell said many of his MSU followers let him know how pleased they were by his performance.

“I stay in contact with a lot of the Spartans,” he said, “and a lot of them hit me up on Facebook, hit me up on Twitter, and just let me know how much pride I showed and how much Spartan spirit I showed during my fight.”

Email David Mayo at dmayo@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo