By Allan Fox: The Bryant Jennings (19-0, 10 KOs) and Wladimir Klitschko (63-3, 53 KOs) is now reportedly set for April 25th, and will be taking place at Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York, USA.
The two sides had been locked into the negotiations for quite a long time despite having agreed to the financial deal last December. Shannon Briggs’ name had been floated as a potential opponent for the 38-year-old Wladimir if the Jennings fight failed to take place. Thankfully, that won’t be happening.
It’s not a great fight. Jennings is ultra-confident of victory, but he’s slender, not a big puncher, and he looked very poor in his last fight against Mike Perez. Jennings was timid much of the time against Perez in winning a controversial 12 round split decision last year in July.
It was a fight that Perez would have won had he not gassed out in the 2nd half of the bout, because Jennings didn’t have the size or the power to do much when Perez was actually throwing punches.
Jennings is Wladimir’s IBF mandatory challenger so he doesn’t have any choice but to take the fight.
It’ll be televised on HBO, but it’s not expected to bring in big ratings. Wladimir has a 3-fight deal with HBO, and the Jennings fight at least partially makes sense. It’s not the type of bout that promises fireworks though. Jennings is more of a combination puncher who throws a lot of shots, but not with power.
At 6’3”, 225 pounds, Jennings’ reach is freakishly long for his height. He’s got a three inch reach advantage over the 6’6” Wladimir despite being three inches shorter than him. However, Jennings’ lack of power and his light weight will make it near impossible for him to be competitive with Wladimir even for an instant.
Wladimir has problems against fighters with power and huge height, but Jennings has neither of those things going for him.
In his last fight, Klitschko defeated the 6’4 ½” Kubrat Pulev by a 5th round knockout last November. Wladimir looked awkward and uncomfortable with Pulev’s size in that fight. But once Wladimir started nailing Pulev with left hooks, he was able to put him down. Pulev was knocked out by a hard left hook by Wladimir in the 5th round. It was the kind of fight where Wladimir was forced to slug, because if he had tried to box Pulev, it would have been a much more difficult match due to Pulev’s excellent jab.