By Thomas Hanson: For most of Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko’s boxing career, the two brothers have steadfastly refused to fight each other, pointing out some old obscure promise that they both gave to momma Klitschko years ago in which they promised her that they would never fight each other. However, with Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 24 KOs) about to take on Samuel Peter for the WBC heavyweight title on October 11th in Germany, I think the two brothers need to revisit that promise and perhaps get momma Klitschko change her mind. I mean there’s nothing wrong with two brothers fighting each other, is there?

I have two brothers and I fought them constantly from a kind until my teenage years, winning some and losing others. It never bothered me and I didn’t hate them if I lost or if they won, and the same with them. heck, if you brought in gloves, which we did on a couple of occasions, my mother was never afraid of us fighting. At least with gloves on, we had some padding instead of using just our fists which was more often the case. The important thing is, our egos weren’t so fragile and twisted that we wouldn’t hold a grudge if we lost.

Perhaps our family is different than some of others, but grudges are for people with problems. If you’ve got it together, and you know how to work problems out in your family, grudges and things like that don’t happen. This is why I wonder why neither of the Klitschko brothers are big enough to stand up on their own two hind feet and let momma Klitschko know what’s happening, to explain the situation to her. She’s obviously afraid that one of them will hold a grudge, which is why she’s against them fighting, but I doubt any hard feelings would be coming from either of them, especially Wladimir who seems to bend over backwards in giving Vitali respect.

The same would probably hold true for Vitali, because he already has a readymade excuse if he gets brained by Wladimir, that is, he’s only fought once in four years and isn’t the same fighter he once was. The reason why all of this even matters is because if Vitali somehow defeats Samuel Peter in their fight in October, then it effectively ruins Wladimir’s chances of unifying all the heavyweight titles, which is something he’s been crowing about without stop for the past year. I’m not sure why he sees that as being so important, because practically none of the boxing fans really care about it, but for Wladimir this is his big wish. Like McTeague, who dreamed some day of having a gold tooth outside of his dentist office, Wladimir wants to unify all the titles at all costs.

From the outsider’s perspective, it seems as if it’s all a big to do for nothing, but Wladimir seems to need this trophy in order to feel validated as a fighter somehow. For this reason, Vitali may end up getting in Wladimir’s way of snatching all the titles for himself. Instead of waiting around and getting older while Vitali fights two or three times against a few nominal fighters, Wladimir needs to cut to the chase and go right after his brother.

There’s nothing wrong with it. Both fighters will have gloves, a mouthpiece, a ringside doctor and millions of people watching them fight from around the world. Believe me, this fight would end up being much more exciting than any dull fighter that they end up fighting for the remainder of the career. While they’re at it, they’ll both probably make much more money in fighting each other than in fighting some unknown heavyweight from wherever.