By Eric Thomas: With new WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter’s (30-1, 23 KOs) recent 6th round TKO over Oleg Maskaev last Saturday night, Peter is now looking for his next opponent. He doesn’t have much choice in the matter from the looks of it, because the WBC have bestowed emeritus upon former heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 34 KOs), which enables him to challenge for the title without having to work his way to the top of the WBC rankings like normal fighters must do.

The problem with this, however, is that Vitali has been out of boxing since December 2004, and the public has largely forgot about him. After retiring for two years, Vitali came out of retirement in late 2007, and sought to fight journeyman Jameel McCline in a tune-up bout before challenging the WBC heavyweight champion. Unfortunately, Vitali once again injured himself while in training for the bout resulting in yet another cancellation of one of his fights.

Injuries aside, even if Vitali were to make it into a bout with Samuel Peter, which would likely occur later in the year, would the public really be interested in such a fight? Unless I miss my guess, there would be little interest in such a bout for a number of reasons, but mostly because of Vitali’s lack of popularity as a fighter. At one time in his career, around 2004, Vitali was building up a respectable fan base after his wins over Corrie Sanders and Danny Williams. But with the huge amount of time that Vitali has been away from boxing, plus his tendency for repeated injuries, it seems as if he has dropped off the map in terms of appeal to the average fan.

His brother, Wladimir Klitscko, the IBF & WBO heavyweight champion, remains a fairly interesting fighter given that he’s considered to be the best of the heavyweight champions. Additionally, Wladimir has already fought Peter in 2005, a bout which ended up being one of the most exciting heavyweight fights in recent years. In the process of beating Peter by a 12-round unanimous decision, Wladimir was knocked down several times, yet he still was able to win due to his size and boxing skills. Since that time, many in the boxing community have been interested in seeing a rematch between Peter and Wladimir, hoping to see another fight that may be as exciting as the first bout.

Up to this time, there hasn’t been a reason for it, because Peter was going after the WBC belt, whereas Wladimir was the IBF heavyweight champion. However, now that Wladimir has decided to attempt to unify all the heavyweight titles, it seems only logical that it should be him that fights Peter rather than Wladimir’s aging and injury prone brother Vitali.

That’s not to say that Wladimir should be selfish and think only of himself; Rather, it’s his time to shine as a fighter, and he worked hard to get to where he is by winning first the IBF title and more recently the WBO. Believe me, if Vitali is still a good fighter, it shouldn’t take him too long to work himself back into title contention by doing it the normal way – by working his way to the top. If Vitali can’t make it for one reason or another, so be it. That’s the way it goes.