By Allan Fox: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (59-3, 50 KO’s) turns 37-years-old today, March 25th. At 37, Wladimir is still going strong and hasn’t shown any signs of losing his skills or his enthusiasm for the sport.
The only thing that seems to be missing from Wladimir is his urgency to get in the ring with the top guys – Kubrat Pulev, Tyson Fury, Bryant Jennings, Chris Arreola, David Haye and David Price – to give boxing fans some better fights than the ones that Wladimir has been putting on in the last two years.
At this point in Wladimir’s career, he seems content to defend his titles against the likes of Jean-Marc Mormeck, Mariusz Wach, Tony Thompson and Francesco Pianeta (28-0-1, 15 KO’s).
It’s hard to believe that Wladimir has the second longest heavyweight champion reign of all time behind that of Joe Louis. Wladimir has held at least one of the heavyweight world titles since capturing the IBF title from Chris Byrd in April 2006. That’s seven years as the world champion, but it’s also a sign that the heavyweight division has been in a woeful state during this time.
Compared to the quality of fighters there were in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, the heavyweight division has been incredibly poor from 2006 to the present time. The division is getting a little bit better with the emergence of Tyson Fury, but Wladimir isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to get in the ring with the young 24-year-old Fury for some reason.
Wladimir will be back in the ring in two months to defend his title against the unbeaten fringe contender Francesco Pianeta (28-0-1, 15 KO’s) on May 4th at the SAP-Arena, Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This is yet another easy fight for Wladimir, and few boxing fans outside of Germany are eager to see the fight because it’s such a bad mismatch on paper.
Pianeta fights out of Germany, and has an inflated record like a lot of heavyweights nowadays. However, he’s somehow gone through eight years in the pro game without once fighting a contender to get a title shot against Wladimir. That’s disappointing to say the least because that tells you that this fight is going to be a mismatch because Pianeta is taking such a huge jump up in competition.
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