Wladimir Klitschko wants Anthony Joshua rematch

By Boxing News - 04/30/2017 - Comments

Image: Wladimir Klitschko wants Anthony Joshua rematch

By Scott Gilfoid: Wladimir Klitschko (64-5, 53 KOs) fought his heart out on Saturday night against Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs), but he came up short in losing by an 11h round knockout at Wembley Stadium. Wladimir said after the fight that he wants an immediate rematch against Joshua after figures out the issues he had in losing.

The boxing world saw Joshua get exposed by Wladimir tonight. Joshua looked like a big, slow bodybuilder that had wondered into the ring tonight mistaking it for a posing stage. Joshua was completely lost out there for most of the fight. To be honest, Joshua only had 2 brief spurts of activity where he looked marginally good, and that was round 5 and 11. Those were the rounds were Joshua knocked Wladimir down. On both occasions, Joshua was fighting on fumes after he fired off his shots. If Wladimir had the sense enough to grab Joshua in round 11 to clinch his way out of the round, he probably would have made it out of the round.

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A rematch could be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Joshua. Heck, he almost lost tonight. Can you imagine what would have happened if Wladimir had landed just one pitiful right hands after Joshua had gotten back to his feet following a 5th round knockout. It would all she wrote. We’re talking ends-ville for the Joshua hype train.

It doesn’t really matter though, because the way that Joshua was EXPOSED by Wladimir tonight, it might as well be considered a loss. Joshua was exposed far worse than Gennady Golovkin was in his fight against Daniel Jacobs last March. The way that Joshua tonight, you might as well say he lost the fight to Wladimir. In my mind, I think Joshua lost because he looked absolutely horrid out there. The guy with the TALENT was Wladimir. He looked superb except for the fact that he stopped his right hand in round 6.

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It was not hard to see where the fight got away from the 41-year-old Wladimir. He let Joshua survive after having him completely exhausted in the 6th following a hard knockdown. The referee let Joshua continue after he was knocked down. Joshua was out on his feet and the fight arguably should have been stopped by the referee. It’s one of those things. The referee decided to let Joshua continue.

Wladimir let his foot of the gas in the 7th and Joshua eventually got his second wind in the 11th. It took Joshua six rounds to fully recover from gassing out in round 5. In that round, Joshua knocked Wladimir down and emptied his gas tank trying to finish him off. Wladimir easily avoided Joshua’s power shots in the 5th after he got back to his feet.

“Of course, we have it in the contract, I’m right now interested,” said Klitschko to Sky Sports after the fight. “Analyze what the heck has happened.

So there it is. Wladimir wants his rematch against Joshua and he wants it pronto, baby. Wladimir wants and deserves a second fight. It was more than close enough for Wladimir to rate a second fight with Joshua. There really isn’t anyone else for Joshua to fight right now other than Wladimir. Tyson Fury still has a ton of large to burn off, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to burn off all that blubber in just 5 months. I mean, it took Fury 2 year to put all that fat on his 6’9” frame, and I think it’s going to take it least a good year to burn the weight off. We’re not talking about 30 pounds of blubber. We’re talking 115 lbs.

That’s going to require special help to take that kind of fat off. As such, Wladimir is the only guy that can pack in the fans at Wembley. Deontay Wilder still has to be build up in the UK before a fight between him and Joshua would be a big one. Deontay needs to face one of the domestic level British fighters like Dillian Whyte or Dereck Chisora so that the British public can see him fight before he faces Joshua. Wladimir didn’t need to go through all that jazz because he’d been a world champion for 10 years in the past, and he’d fought Tyson Fury in 2015 in a fight that was shown in the UK and watched by tons of British boxing fans.

What’s interesting is that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn never said anything about there being a rematch clause in the contract with Klitschko. Hearn had said before the fight that they would only consider doing a rematch if the fight were a close one. Well, if there’s a truly a rematch clause in the contract, then Joshua and Hearn have no choice but to make a second fight if that’s what he wants. That’s not good news for Joshua, because he really had MAJOR problems against Wladimir tonight. The Ukrainian had no problems hitting him with his right hand power shots whenever he wanted to. There was seemingly nothing on earth that Joshua

I hope that Hearn doesn’t drag his feet about giving Wladimir his rematch with Joshua, because believe me, he deserves one. The boxing public deserves to see a rematch between these two 6’6” Olympic gold medalists. Joshua might learn something from a second fight, and believe me; he needs to learn a lot about boxing.

“I did enjoy the night as well as you. I wish I would [have] raised my hand instead of being someone that didn’t make it and win the titles back,” said Wladimir. “But congratulations to Anthony, he got up, he fought back, and he won the titles.”

I think I speak for everybody when I saw, Wladimir can feel proud of the way he fought on Saturday night against Joshua. Wladimir did a great job of schooling the 27-year-old and exposing him for being a flawed fighter. We saw Joshua for what he is – a fighter that only has basic boxing skills and terrible stamina. The way that Joshua fought tonight, he would be knocked out by a handful of heavyweights in the division.

Eddie Hearn has been flapping his gums about how Joshua will become the biggest name in boxing for 10 years. Heck, Joshua isn’t going to be the biggest name in the sport for even 1 year. Joshua has too many holes in his game for him to carry the sport on his back for 10 years. Joshua laboring around the ring like an old car with 300,000 miles on it against Klitschko, Just looking at the two fighters, I thought the ages were reversed with Wladimir being the 27-year-old fighter and Joshua being the 41-year-old. Wladimir moved much better than Joshua and fought better too.

I think the next great British heavyweight will be Joe Joyce, the 2016 Olympic super heavyweight silver medalist. In looking at how badly Joshua fought tonight, I totally believe what Tyson Fury said about Joe Joyce working Joshua over in sparring for this fight. Joyce said he was the lead sparring partner for Joshua to get him ready for this fight. Joyce grinned when asked if it was true that he was beating Joshua up in sparring. The way that Joyce smiled, it had ‘yes, I did work Joshua over’ written all over it. I’m just saying.

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