Wladimir Klitschko: I’d rather fight Deontay Wilder in a PPV bout

By Boxing News - 04/24/2015 - Comments

wladimir55By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (63-3, 53 KOs) says he would prefer to face the WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) because he thinks it would be a pay-per-view bout. However, Wladimir will likely face #1 WBO Tyson Fury later on this year unless he chooses for the big money fight against the 6’7” Deontay.

The Fury will make Wladimir a lot of money as well because it will be a huge in Europe where the fight will obviously take place. But before Wladimir can get the big money fights against Fury and Wilder, he’s going to need to get past unbeaten American Bryant Jennings (19-0, 10 KOs) in their fight this Saturday on April 25th at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Jennings has a lot of talent and he may just pull off the upset against the 6’6” Wladimir. Jennings can do a lot of things that Wladimir can’t do in terms of throwing combinations and moving around the ring. He hits more than hard enough to KO a fighter like Wladimir.

“Absolutely yes. This fight is gonna be huge in Europe, absolutely huge in Europe,” Wladimir said about fighting Fury via ESPN.com. “I’d rather fight with Wilder in a pay-per-view fight, and it would be nice to have another belt. But there’s one heavyweight champion for a long time.”

Oh boy, Fury may have to wait a while longer before he gets a title shot against Wladimir. Wladimir said it himself that he’d rather fight Deontay. You know what that means, don’t you? We might see Wladimir look to get permission from the World Boxing Organization to bypass Fury in order to take a much bigger and more important unification bout against Deontay Wilder. As you know the unification fights come first and the regular run of the mill title defenses often come second.

I hate to be the one to clue Wladimir in but there are more than one heavyweight champion now. Deontay is the WBC heavyweight champion, and Ruslan Chagaev is the WBA champ. Those are two quality fighters. Wladimir needs to come to terms that there’s some new guys holding down titles now, and he’s not the only one any longer.

Wladimir stands to gain a heck of a lot more facing Deontay than he does Fury because Deontay has huge punching power and he’s becoming a big name in the United States. Deontay has the one-punch power to knock Wladimir’s lights out in a way that we haven’t seen since Corrie Sanders did it to Wladimir in 2003. With Fury, he’s a light-hitting slapper who struggled to beat Steve Cunningham in 2013. Cunningham even dropped Fury at one point in the fight. Fury’s one claim to fame is beating British domestic level fighter Dereck Chisora twice, which isn’t a big deal given how limited Chisora is.

Speaking of his interest in facing Deontay, Wladimir said “I think it’s a logical way to think [to fight Deontay]. The belt I never had would be nice to have. I need to say I’m in the driver’s seat. He just won the title [in January]. He needs to defend it, but I hope this fight happens sooner than later. I know he has decision makers behind him. We’ll see what happens.”

I don’t know if Wladimir will get the Deontay fight because there is a lot of guys that Deontay and his adviser Al Haymon are interested in fighting. I mean, fighting Wladimir isn’t a big deal because he’s not a big star in the U.S, so there’s no real upside to that fight. Further, Deontay still isn’t a huge star in the U.S either, and he needs more time to become more popular. I can see the logic of fighting Wladimir in a couple of years after Deontay has had time to win over a lot of fans, but right now the fight doesn’t make a lot of sense.



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