By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is saying the mega-fight between IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) and 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) is agreed on for December 10. The venue for the Joshua-Klitschko fight is at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
It’s not a good situation for Klitschko to agree to fight in the UK, because he’s the type of fighter who seems to do better when he has the boxing fans on his side rather than rooting against him. If you look at Wladimir’s fight against Tyson Fury last November, Wladimir seemed to be uncomfortable when the fans were cheering for Fury.
Believe me; it’ll be MUCH worse for Wladimir when he faces Joshua on December 10. It’s going to be pure fan applause for Joshua and probably none for Wladimir in this fight. Frankly, I think it’s a stupid move on Klitschko’s part to take the fight with Joshua in the UK, but I guess the money made it worthwhile for the Ukrainian fighter.
Wladimir would have been better off going for the vacant World Boxing Organization heavyweight title. Wladimir is ranked #2 by the WBO. He would have had to fight his old sparring partner #1 WBO Joseph Parker for that belt, and he would have had a good chance to beat him.
The news is good for some boxing, as they feel this is a fight that will take the 27-year-old Joshua to the next level in terms of popularity.
Hearn said this to BBC Radio Five about the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight being a done deal:
“Anthony Joshua has agreed to fight Wladimir Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko has agreed to fight Anthony Joshua,” Hearn said. “The financial terms have been agreed. It’s just a case of getting the paperwork sorted out, the sanctions sorted out. It’s a huge event, the young superstar against the guy who basically dominated the division for the last ten years or so. In terms of experience, it’s a total mismatch. It’s not the right fight for him. But that’s what’s exciting about it.”
Wow, looks at how Hearn is trying to paint the fight as being one in which his fighter Joshua is the underdog. Nice try, Hearn, but we know better. This is a mismatch. Wladimir is OLD, and not the fighter he once was a decade ago. We saw that clearly last November with a limited Tyson Fury beating Wladimir. It was sad to watch for me, because Wladimir’s hand-eye coordination looked gone, and he couldn’t pull the trigger on his shots. For me, it was like watching a replay of baseball great Willie May’s last game of his career while playing for the New York Mets. A ground ball hit to May’s went through his legs, and it looked bad. I think Wladimir is in the same boat, but worse. He looks totally shot in my opinion.
Besides Wladimir’s horrible performance against Fury, he’s now been out of the ring for an entire year since that fight. By the time he fights Joshua in December, Wladimir will have been out of action for over a year. That’s not good. Wladimir will be old and rusty as heck when he gets inside the ring with the younger Joshua, who just turned 27 on October 15. Joshua has been busy in 2016 in destroying two fodder opponents in Charles Martin and Dominic Breazeale.
Rust won’t be a problem for Joshua, but it WILL be a MAJOR problem for the older Klitschko. I think this is a bone-headed move on Klitschko’s part to agree to a fight with Joshua right now. If Wladimir wants to fight Joshua, then he at least should get two tune-up fights out of the way first before facing him in a neutral venue like the United States.
I’m just wondering whose idea it is for Wladimir to fight Joshua coming off of a one-year layoff and fighting him in the UK. If it was Wladimir’s idea to agree to this fight, then he needed for his manager Bernd Boente to talk some sense to him to let him know this is not the smartest idea he could come up with. You don’t fight Joshua in the UK, and you definitely don’t fight him after a year-long layoff in my opinion. That’s just dumb, dumb and dumb. Of course, if money is what you’re looking for, then yeah, fighting Joshua in the UK after a year out of the ring is a swell thing to do. Just for the sweet cash, take your likely 1st round knockout loss, and retire, baby.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want to end my boxing career like that. I’d want to go out on a high rather than a low by fighting under less than ideal circumstances against a younger fighter in his own home country. I’m sure if the shoe is on the other foot someday when Joshua is 40-years-old, no longer sharp, no longer able to pull the trigger on his shots, I kind of doubt he’ll be chomping at the bit to come off of a long one-year layoff and a loss to fight a younger opponent in front of his own fans in his own country.
I somehow have a really hard time seeing Joshua do that in the future. If Hearn is still around at that point as Joshua’s promoter, I don’t think he would even consider letting Joshua fight a young lion under those conditions. I think Hearn would red light a fight of that kind. That’s why I don’t understand why Wladimir would want to put himself at such a disadvantage by fighting Joshua in the UK after a year out of the ring and dreadful defeat at the hands of Fury. It’s one thing for Wladimir to have fought a rematch with Fury in the UK, but a different thing for him to be fighting Joshua.
It was known that Fury was struggling with motivation and his conditioning in getting ready for a rematch with Klitschko in the UK. Wladimir was in the perfect position to avenge his loss to Fury. He didn’t have to worry about Fury’s punching power, because he has none. He didn’t have to worry about Fury being shaper than him, because he’d been out of the ring for an entire year just like Wladimir. It was the perfect fight for Wladimir, and it didn’t matter if it took place in the UK. However, things aren’t perfect for Wladimir in facing Joshua on December 10 in the UK, because the variables are totally different.
“If you look at the odds with the bookmakers, it’s an even money fight – it’s a complete 50-50 fight,” said Hearn about the Joshua-Klitschko fight. “With freshness, the sharpness, that leads you to Anthony Joshua, and then the experience says that Joshua hasn’t got a chance.”
What a joke! Hearn is trying to make it seem like the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight is a 50-50 fight. It’s a total mismatch in reality, because Wladimir is not ready for this fight in my view. I’m not surprised that Hearn is trying to build the fight as a 50-50 affair rather than one where Joshua is getting an old lion that no longer has it in Wladimir. After Joshua beats Wladimir, Hearn can crow about the win, saying that Joshua just beat the best heavyweight on the planet – blah-blah-blah. Hearn can then market Joshua as having proven that he’s the best fighter in the world because he beat 40-year-old Wladimir.
The casual fans obviously won’t know better, because they probably have no clue how old Wladimir is, let alone who he is. The hardcore boxing fans will know that Joshua has proven nothing by beating Wladimir. Those fans will say that Joshua still has A LOT of work to do by taking on and beating the likes of the big three – Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz and Joseph Parker. Those are the guys that Joshua should be fighting for the WBA title, not a past his best Klitschko. I think Joshua would be really up against it if he had to fight the likes of Wilder, Ortiz or Parker. Those guys can all punch, and they have no problems letting their hands go.
Joshua and his promoter Hearn wouldn’t be able to count on Ortiz, Wilder and Parker not pulling the trigger on their shots due to advanced age. Those guys would be bouncing heat-seeking missiles off Joshua’s chin one after another if they fought him. Those would be TRUE 50-50 fights, not like with Joshua vs. Klitschko, which is more like a 90-10 fight in Joshua’s favor.
Wladimir has a chance, a small one, of pulling off an upset in beating Joshua. However, everything is lined up against Wladimir in this fight in terms of age, activity level, and home country. Joshua has every advantage you can think of, which is why it just seems like an INSANE move on Wladimir’s part to have agreed to it. If I was Wladimir’s manager, I would have steered him in another direction.