Wladimir Klitschko: It looks like Fury is next!

By Boxing News - 04/26/2015 - Comments

wladimir777By Scott Gilfoid: After bellyaching about wanting a title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) for the past two years, #1 WBO mandatory challenger Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) is about to get his dream come true with Wladimir now saying he’ll be likely be his next opponent.

Now it’s up to Fury to show that he can back up his bold talk because the British fighter has been flapping his gums 24/7 about how he thinks he can beat the 6’6” Wladimir and now he’s going to be getting the chance to show what he can do. It’ll be good for these two fighters to finally get it over with and fight each other so that boxing fans can find out who the better man is.

I personally think Wladimir is a shot fighter who is just getting by with his still excellent jab and his huge size. With a jab like the one Wladimir has, he’s able to dominate with that weapon alone. It doesn’t matter that he can’t pull the trigger on his right hand and left hook anymore. As long as Wladimir can throw jabs, he’ll be able to beat 90% of the top heavyweights. The top 10% of the division I think will beat Wladimir, starting with Fury.

“The way it looks Tyson Fury is next,” Klitchko said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.

“I think this [Fury] fight needs to happen in Europe,” Wladimir said via BBC.com. “Fighting Fury in Germany or in Great Britain. That’s something we have to figure out,” Wladimir said.

YouTube video

Of course, Wladimir and Fury have to fight in Europe. Where the heck else could they stage the fight? They sure can’t put the fight in the United States because I don’t think it would sellout Madison Squae Garden due to these guys not being a draw. As bad as Wladimir looked last night against Jennings, I wouldn’t be surprised if HBO took a pass on a Wladimir-Fury fight. It’s too risky to televise a fight like that in my view in case Wladimir stinks out the joint, and Fury looks equally terrible.

The fighter that boxing fans want to see Wladimir fight is the 6’7” WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Wladimir said that he wants to fight Wilder, but it wouldn’t be the next fight for him. Fury will be the next guy. Well, if Fury beats Klitschko, I can’t see Fury facing Wilder afterwards. Fury has talked about wanting to fight Wladimir, but he’s never actually done it. I think Fury would have to be dragged into the ring kicking and screaming to fight a talent like Deontay. There’s too much speed, fire power and dare I say talent with Deontay. Fury is just a tall guy that throws a lot of punches and uses his height advantages to dominate the mediocre short guys that his promoter has been feeding him since he turn pro. He’s never faced anyone good, and he’s not shown any power or much of a chin at the pro level.

Last night, Wladimir defeated previously unbeaten American challenger Bryant Jennings (19-1, 10 KOs) by an incredibly boring 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 116-111, 116-111 and 118-109 at Madison Square Garden in New York. With the way that Wladimir fought, he looked like a textbook version of a fighter who could no longer pull the trigger. He looked horrible. When he threw his power shots, they looked more like arm punches than actual power punches, as he doesn’t seem to be able to throw with the same kind of power that he once did. I mean, he’s still got good power with his left hook but he almost never throws the shot. All we saw last night was jabbing, clinching and occasional right hands that either missed or landed on Jennings’ gloves.

“Jennings would have beaten a lot of heavyweights,” Wladimir said.

I agree with Wladimir. Jennings would have beaten a lot of heavyweights last night, but unfortunately for him not the good ones. I think Jennings would have been beaten by at least 10-15 of the top heavyweights last night. I can think of a lot of heavyweights that would have blasted Jennings apart if he fought like that against them. You have to remember that Jennings was totally dominated in his previous fight against Mike Perez in the first six rounds last July. The only reason Jennings won the fight is because Perez gassed out in the 2nd half of the fight, not because of anything that Fury was doing in the ring. Perez just looked like he hadn’t trained correctly and wasn’t up for going a full 12 rounds.

Fury is coming off of an 8th round stoppage win over Christian Hammer. It was a poor match-up for Fury against a guy with a dramatically inflated resume. Hammer looked terrible and I still can’t believe how highly he was ranked by the WBO.



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