By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua was hoping to fight the talented but against 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in a fight that would have taken place in December at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, UK. There’s no word yet about who Klitschko and Joshua will fight if they don’t face each other.
Both want to fight in December. It’s especially important for Wladimir to fight in December, because he hasn’t fought in an entire year since last November in his 12 round decision loss to Tyson Fury. Wladimir isn’t going to waste more time. A good plan B for Joshua would be David Haye; although that’s a fight that wouldn’t be made quickly.
It’s probably not a realistic option. Wladimir is in a better position potentially. He can fight the likes of Joshua Parker in December for the vacant World Boxing Organization title. Once the WBA decides to let their title free so that heavyweights can once again fight for it, then Wladimir can come back for that title once he has the WBO belt in his possession.
Wladimir supposedly had agreed to the fight. However, he wanted Tyson Fury’s recently vacated World Boxing Association heavyweight title to be on the line for the Joshua fight, and as of now the WBA hasn’t said whether they’ll let the two fighters battle over it. Wladimir doesn’t want to fight Joshua for just the IBF strap. He wants the fight to have more at stake.
Some boxing fans might not understand why it’s so important for Wladimir to be fighting for two belts rather than just one. After all, the casual boxing fans have no clue about belts and such. They just know of Wladimir and Joshua from what they hear about them, so they want to see them fight. The Joshua-Klitschko fight reportedly will have a money pot of over $30 million that can be slit up between the two fighters.
The money doesn’t change if the WBA title isn’t at stake. Heck, you can argue the money doesn’t change even without any titles at stake. There’s a demand from boxing fans to see the Joshua-Wladimir fight, even though Wladimir looks to be COMPLETELY over-the-hill in this writer’s opinion.
There are enough casual fans that will still want to see the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight to make it a huge success. These fans don’t know that Wladimir’s game has dropped off since 2014. They just know that Wladimir is a big name, and that’s all they care about.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport said this to skysports.com about the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight:
“The deal is there but we are awaiting sanctioning from the WBA. Both teams have written to the WBA to request sanctioning of our fight, but Wladimir wants the WBA belt to be on the line so until that is approved we cannot move forward. We expect news in the next few days, but in the meantime I believe both sides will look at alternative options for December 10 while we hope to get the news we need to make the fight happen.”
Unless the WBA makes a quick decision about whether to let Joshua and Klitschko fight for their title, it looks like the two fighters will go in another direction to look for alternative options.
I don’t expect the WBA to make a quick decision about their belt, and Wladimir isn’t going to wait around for it. Hearn should be thinking about a Plan-B for Joshua such as David Price, Johan Duhaupas, Dillian Whyte, David Haye or Carlos Takam. Hearn can lure a decent heavyweight into agreeing to the fight by waving money under their snoots. Hearn can probably get someone good if he wants to. I’m not sure that he’ll want to. It’s too bad Luis Ortiz is fighting next month on November 12 against Malik Scott, because he’d be the ideal guy to come in and challenge Joshua for his IBF title. I don’t think Ortiz, 37, will mind terribly much that the WBA title isn’t on the line for the fight. There would be enough money involved to make it a worthwhile fight for Ortiz as long as he got a good cut of the loot. However, Ortiz has the fight with Malik Scott that is tying him down.
The Manchester Arena might be too big of a venue for Joshua if Hearn can’t get Klitschko. Asking the British boxing fans to fill the 21,000 seat arena for a fight between Joshua and Price, Whyte, Takam or Duhaupas might be a bit much. The fans aren’t going to react well to the news of Joshua fighting one of those guys, because they’ve got their hearts set on a Joshua-Klitschko fight.
I always thought the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight would be an extremely hard fight to put together right now, because there isn’t much time to put it together. Further, the WBA and WBO titles were only recently vacated by Fury. To have one of those belts put on the line for the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight this quickly was going to be trouble. With the fight being contingent on the WBA belt being available, it wasn’t good timing right now for the Joshua-Klitschko fight.
In hindsight, it’s better for Wladimir that he’s not taking the fight against Joshua right now, because he hasn’t fought in one year, and he’s probably very rusty. Wladimir also wouldn’t have been doing himself any favors by fighting Joshua in the UK rather than in a neutral venue. There are three things working against Wladimir winning the fight against Joshua are they are the following: rust, venue and WBA.
It’s not big deal if the Klitschko vs. Joshua fight doesn’t get made right now. The two of them can still fight each other in 2017 if they keep winning their fights. The interest will be even bigger if Wladimir wins the WBO title, because the hardcore boxing fans will jump on board and want to see the fight as well. Right now, there are many hardcore fans that believe that Wladimir is too old to beat Joshua given his performances against Fury and Bryant Jennings. If Wladimir can take Joseph Parker’s scalp, it would make fans believe in him again.