By Steven Ocallaghan: So British heavyweight contender Tyson Fury thinks Wladimir and Vitali Klitchko are bad for boxing. I completely disagree. If we look at the brothers records they have ruled the division for the best part of a decade.
Vitali came back fom injury after a long layoff and regained the title easily. The problem with the brothers doesn’t lie with them, it lies with contenders.
The one thing about the brothers is their genuine respect of the game and their opponents. A couple of years ago Wladimir was asked about Britain up and comers and had nothing but praise for them, even with all the mud slinging by David Haye, they till got on with their businesses and in the end took care of David Haye.
After the brothers, Haye is arguably the best and he was soundly beaten by Wladimir. Possibly my only bugbear is that they don’t always take on the top contender. Marius Wach had a decent record and with the exception of one 10 second spell got completely dominated.
Now I like Tyson Fury but again he hasn’t earned the right as of yet to a title shot and I don’t think that if he beats Steve Cunningham that entitles him to that as well.
David Price has to take care of Thompson better than Wlad did to get him really noticed. A legitimate contender for me is Kubrat Pulev who at 17-0 with 9 KOs is in line for a shot and at 6’5″ matches up well. His last to 2 stoppage wins over Ustinov and Dimitrenko suggest that.
The American Bryant Jennings is a good fighter and with 16-0 and 50% KO rate is moving in the right direction. Not the tallest at 6’2″ but with a 7′ reach, he will be challenging next year.
Chris Arreola is another good fighter and at 31 still has plenty of time.
An outsider for me is the American based Russian Magomed Abdusalamov 16-0 with 16kos is a definite one for the future. Even though Jameel Mcline put him down in round 1 of his last fight he came back to TKO him in the next round.
Getting back to my earlier point it’s not that. Klitchkos are bad for boxing it’s really that the other fighters aren’t as good Yet.
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