By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is saying that his fighter IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) will be fighting a rematch with Wladimir Klitschko (64-5, 53 KOs) in his next fight. Wladimir will be meeting with his manager Bernd Boente this week to discuss the fight, and from there they will be looking to get the rematch with Joshua scheduled.
This would be a big money fight for both Joshua and Klitschko. It would be televised on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK like their previous fight. It’s unclear whether Hearn will stick the Joshua-Klitschko fight in a stadium again. I don’t think Hearn needs to do that in order for the Joshua vs. Klitschko II fight to make a lot of money in the boxing world.
Joshua, 27, beat Wladimir by a 11th round knockout on April 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Joshua was ahead on the scorecards by the scores 96-93, 95-93 for Joshua, and 95-93 for Klitschko. Boxing News 24 had Wladimir ahead at the time of the stoppage by the score of 95-93. Joshua had been totally spent from the 6th round.
Wladimir dominated rounds 6 to 9 with his boxing ability and fast foot work. Joshua looked sluggish, heavy and over-muscled. In the rematch, Joshua needs to think about trimming down, because he’s not going to do well with him carrying around all that muscle. After all, this isn’t a bodybuilding competition that he’s about to enter against Wladimir.
”In our minds moving forward, it’s Wladimir Klitschko next,” said Hearn to skysports.com. ”The situation is the fight is happening unless we are told otherwise by Bernd Boente and Wladimir Klitschko, who have a meeting this week.”
I think it goes without saying that the rematch between Joshua and Klitschko is happening. There’s too much cash involved for them not to fight each other again. Moreover, Wladimir realizes how close he came to beating Joshua. Wladimir exposed the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in a major way by boxing circles around him, frustrating him, and making him look like he had two left feet. When Wladimir was in the zone, he was so much better than Joshua that it wasn’t even funny.
Wladimir showed the boxing world clearly that the next generation’s top heavyweight is a downgrade from the previous generation. If Joshua is going to be the one that carries the heavyweight division for the next decade, then it’s bad news for the sport. Larry Holmes was seen by many boxing fans as a less talented fighter than the guy he replaced in Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson was seen as an improvement over Holmes. Lennox Lewis was arguably a poor replacement for Mike Tyson. Now we’re getting Joshua as the replacement for Wladimir, and he’s clearly not an improvement.
“So many offers this week – Nigeria, Dubai, America, and also we have the opportunity of Cardiff here in the UK,” said Hearn. “Financially, Cardiff’s not the best choice, but also at the same time, if it’s not broke don’t fix it, and we have that mentality with ‘AJ’ moving forward.”
What could cause some problems for Joshua and Hearn is if the International Boxing Federation insists that Joshua fight mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev next rather than Klitschko. Obviously, Joshua will take the bigger money rematch with Wladimir over a fight with Pulev. If the IBF insists on Joshua facing Pulev next rather than Klitschko, then it might put Joshua in a position where he would need to vacate his IBF title rather than defend it. That means that Wladimir and Joshua would be fighting for just the WBA belt instead of the IBF and WBA straps.
Honestly, I doubt either of them will lose any sleep over the IBF title not being on the line for the fight. The winner of the Joshua-Klitschko II fight will easily be able to fight whoever picks up the IBF title. Joshua and Klitschko are so popular that they’ll easily be able to get the new IBF champion to fight them. The heavyweight is a simple one compared to the welterweight division where the belts split off between fighters that have promoters that don’t work with other promoters too frequently.
I doubt that we’re going to see a unified champion at 147 anytime soon due to the politics of boxing. But at heavyweight, it’s easy to unify the titles. WBC champion Deontay Wilder wants to fight Joshua in the worst way. The same goes for WBO champion Joseph Parker. These are guys that you don’t need to ask twice whether they would be interested in signing for a fight with Joshua. They, of course, would also jump at the chance to fight Wladimir if he beats Joshua in the rematch.
The idea is for Joshua to fight Wladimir, and then immediately defend against Pulev in his next fight. That’s if everything works perfectly for Joshua in him being Wladimir a second time. Joshua has an advantage against Wladimir mow, because he knows how to beat him. Joshua only needs to wait for Wladimir to get tired and attempt to clinch. Once Wladimir tries to initiate a clinch, Joshua can then hit him with an uppercut and knock him out. Wladimir is so used to clinching; it’s become second nature to him to instinctively hold to keep his opponents from throwing punches.
I don’t think it can be trained out of Wladimir to stop clinching. Wladimir was clearly instructed not to hold Joshua the last time, and yet still tried to do it, and it cost him the fight in him getting knocked out in the 11th.
“If we don’t fight Klitschko, the Pulev fight will 100 per cent be next. If we do fight Klitschko, the Pulev fight will 100 per cent be next after that. I think the IBF know that,” said Hearn.
The 6’4 ½” Pulev is an easy fight for Joshua, because he doesn’t have any punching power to speak of. Pulev mostly just jabs. His recent fight against Kevin Johnson was an ugly one, filled with rabbit punches thrown by Pulev. I’m still wondering why Pulev wasn’t disqualified. The fight showed that Pulev can make it rough on his opponents when he wants to. I think that would be the biggest threat to Joshua. It wouldn’t be the punching power or Pulev. It would be his rabbit punches. If Pulev brains Joshua with a punch to the back of his head, he could knock him out. It would be up to the referee to decide whether to count it as a legitimate knockout or to disqualify Pulev. If Joshua doesn’t score an early knockout of Pulev, it could be a very tough fight for him.