By Scott Gilfoid: EBU heavyweight champion Dereck Chisora (19-4, 13 KO’s) is hoping he can force a fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) to take place in Africa in the near future so that Chisora can have a ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ II type of a fight. For Chisora’s vision to come true, he’ll need to beat Andriy Rudenko (24-0, 16 KO’s) in their fight on February 15th in London, UK, and Chisora will also need to defeat Tyson Fury in their proposed rematch in June.
And then finally Chisora will need to be made the mandatory challenger for Wladimir, and he’s of course need to win the purse bid in order to be able to stage a fight in Africa. All of these things will need to fall in place before Chisora can get his dream fight in the location where he wants.
Oddly enough, Chisora might have a chance to win the purse bid if his promoter puts up the big cash to get the fight. But I’m not so sure he’d be excited about staging it in Africa rather than the UK. Why take the risk of the fight not selling well when a fight between Chisora and Wladimir would be huge in the UK?
“I want to fight Wladimir Klitschko this year, but I don’t want him coming to us dictating terms,” Chisora said to the Telegraph. “We have to be able to force this issue with him by becoming mandatory challenger, so that fight can go to purse bids. I want to take it to Africa, to Zaire. Frank [Warren] knows I want that, and if we could take the fight to Africa it would be the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ all over again.”
Chisora really admires Muhammad Ali, who defeated a then young George Foreman in October 30th, 1974 in a fight that took place in Kinshasa, Zaire. It was called ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ and it turned out badly for Foreman with him getting stopped in the 8th round after he fading from the heat in the ring and the exhaustion of punching himself out.
There’s a huge difference between an incredibly popular Muhammad Ali fighting the young knockout artist George Foreman in Africa and the plump, many times beaten Chisora fighting the less than crowd-pleasing Wladimir Klitschko in Africa. I mean, if Chisora wants to stick that fight in Africa, then more power to him, but I think it would be a disaster waiting to happen. I can just picture Chisora and Wladimir fighting in a stadium that is less than one-quarter filled with fans. Yeah, the fight will still be televised in the UK, but as far as the gate attendance goes, I think it would be like as ghost town wherever the fight is staged.
Chisora needs to realize that there is a big, big difference between him and Ali. We’re talking two different types of fighters. Ali was a much accomplished star by the time he fought Foreman in their 1974 fight in Africa. Chisora is just some guy that stepped it up and was beaten over and over again by the top fighters in the heavyweight division. Chisora’s career has now gone backwards with him fighting the lesser heavyweights that he had fought when he was more or less still finding his way. I can see Chisora wanting to put a fight with him and Wladimir in Africa if he had previously won world titles, beaten the likes of Deontay Wilder, Vitali Klitschko, David Haye, Tyson Fury, Kubrat Pulev and Alexander Povetkin. But the sad fact is Chisora has done none of those things. He was beaten by a one-armed Vitali, knocked out by Haye, totally dominated by Fury, and beaten Robert Helenius.
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