By Jeff Aranow: The rematch between IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschko still does not have a date despite months of negotiations between the management for the two fighters. Currently, July 9 is the working date that they’re trying to get the fight to take place. However, with the 6’9” Fury recently re-injuring his back while helping his cousin Hughie Fury out, it remains to be seen whether the Fury-Klitschko fight can still take place in July.
The fight could wind up being pushed back to Autumn between September to December. This would mean that the two giant heavyweights could be out of the ring for as much as an entire year before they eventually face each other. Fury beat Wladimir by a 12 round decision last November in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Ever since then, there’s been a lot of taking back and forth between the two fighters’ management about where the fight should take place and when. As of now, the Klitschko vs. Fury 2 fight is expected to take place in a football stadium in the UK.
“It just depends- I know on the Klitschko side they’d like to do it as soon as possible,” Klitschko’s promoter Tom Loeffler said to ringtv.com. “On both sides it seems they want to do it as soon as possible. But it seems for one reason or another it got pushed back from April to May to June and hopefully we can still do it in the summertime.”
A fight in the summer between Klitschko and Fury might be a little too soon given Fury’s back injury. While he said he would fight even with the injury, it’s hard to imagine that his promoter Mick Hennessey agreeing with that. He’ll obviously want Fury to be 100 percent for the Klitschko rematch. It wasn’t easy for Fury to beat Klitschko last November while fighting at full capacity.
If Fury is fighting with an injured back, then he would have an impossible task ahead of him in trying to beat Klitschko a second time. Klitschko is going to be a lot more aggressive in the rematch than he was in the first fight, and Fury will need to be able to fight Wladimir in possibly a war for him to be able to keep his belts. If Fury is dealing with a back injury, then it could be easy for Wladimir to get a victory the second time around.
“I’m guessing it would be sometime in the summer or in the fall whenever they can because there are a lot of moving parts with that because of the location, with the UK PPV, German TV, HBO, everything has to line up,” said Loeffler. “Wladimir certainly wants to get his titles back.”
Having the Klitschko-Fury fight pushed back to September or later could help Klitschko. Fury looks to be putting on weight with each passing month outside of the ring. He’s a huge celebrity in the UK now after winning the world titles from Wladimir. It’s easy to understand how Fury could put on weight. If the fight gets pushed back all the way to November or December, then Fury might need to use his training camp as a mini-fat farm instead of an actual training camp to get him ready for the rematch against Klitschko. That would play into Wladimir’s hands.
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