By Scott Gilfoid: The negotiations for the fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (63-3, 53 KOs) and unbeaten #3 WBC, #6 IBF Bryant Jennings (19-0, 10 KOs) has reportedly stalled for some reason.
They were supposed to be facing each other on April 25th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Wladimir’s management are now considering Shannon Briggs or possibly the winner of the January 17th fight between WBC champion Bermane Stiverne and Deontay Wilder as the replacement opponent if the Jennings fight can’t be negotiated.
Klitschko’s management are going to wait a couple of weeks and see what happens. It’s likely they’ll be waiting on the Stiverne-Wilder fight to get through in order to possibly line up a unification fight against Deontay Wilder if he comes out on top.
A Wladimir vs. Wilder fight would be a huge event in the United States, and definitely one of Wladimir’s bigger fights since his win over David Haye four years ago.
“At this moment we are far from an agreement. Bryant Jennings was our top choice. Was. At this time, our negotiations have stalled. An opponent can be anyone who is available for that date and who will be approved by our partners HBO in USA, and RTL in Germany,” said Wladimir’s manager Berndt Boente via sport.segodnya.ua.
The Klitschko-Jennings fight doesn’t figure to be a big deal in the United States. While Jennings is an unbeaten fighter with a couple decent wins on his resume, he’s not well known by the casual boxing fans, and he lacks punching power and size.
He’s a good heavyweight, but his lack of size, power and notoriety makes a fight between him and Wladimir a less than huge event in the U.S. Deontay is clearly the better option because of his 6’7” frame, huge punching power and his fan friendly way with the media.
Wilder has a lot of charisma and that makes him the ideal guy for Wladimir to be facing right now. Additionally, Wladimir is familiar with Deontay after using him as his No.1 sparring partner to help get ready for Wladimir’s fight against Mariusz Wach in 2012.
Deontay has improved a lot in the last two years since that time, but I’m sure that Wladimir got a good taste of Deontay’s punching power and knows what he’s up against if he were to face him.
Wladimir is coming off of a 5th round stoppage win over Kubrat Pulev in his last fight in November. It was a one-sided fight from start to finish due to Pulev not having the punching power to make it a competitive match-up.
Comments are closed.