The world title fight between World Boxing Champion Wladimir Klitschko and British challenger Tyson Fury in Dusseldorf on October 24 needs to be rescheduled after Klitschko suffered an injury in his left calf in training. Klitschko suffered the injury in his training camp in Going / Austria on Thursday.
“Of course I’m mad, sorry. For my fans, but also for my opponent Tyson Fury,” Klitschko told German newspaper Bild.
Manager Bernd Bönte explained that a new fight date will be announced this coming week, “We will definitely stay in Dusseldorf. The tickets already sold remain valid,” said Bönte.
This is quite unfortunate but not all that surprising given Klitschko’s advanced age of 39 and history of injuries. Klitschko suffered an arm injury while training for his fight against Kubrat Pulev in 2014. He also suffered two abdominal injuries in 2011 that wiped out a fight against Dereck Chisora that was supposed to take place.
Fury knew what he was getting himself when he agreed to fight Klitschko instead of the younger WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in 2015. Fury was offered the fight against the 6’7″ Wilder, but he turned it down in favor of fighting Klitschko. Now Fury’s decision has come back to bite him in the backside with Klitschko getting hurt. There’s no telling if he’ll get injured again. If so, Fury will need to make a decision whether he wants to stick it out and devote a good portion of his career waiting on an older fighter to see if he can make it to the ring eventually, or look to opt out of the contract if possible and go in another direction.
Fury has had bad luck in the late couple of years when trying to fight older heavyweights instead of the younger ones. Fury was scheduled to fight 34-year-old David Haye in 2013, but that fight failed to take place after Haye twice was injured in training. The fight was postponed, and then later cancelled after Haye suffered a second injury during training. Fury had spent months training and many months waiting on Haye to finally get healthy. That’s the risk that young heavyweights like Fury take when they choose to fight the older guys. When you’re dealing with an older fighter like the nearly 40-year-old Wladimir, injuries happen, and you either stick it out and wait for him to eventually get healthy or you choose to go in another direction to face younger guys like Wilder and Ruslan Chagaev.
With the money that Fury will be getting in the Klitschko fight, he’ll definitely be sticking it out and waiting until the Ukrainian eventually gets healthy in the future whenever that is. Hopefully for Fury’s sake he doesn’t need to wait a year or two before Wladimir can finally hold together long enough to make it inside the ring in one piece.
Wladimir’s brother Vitali Klitschko retired after suffering hand injuries that kept him out of the ring for well over a year. He was supposed to have defended his WBC title against Bermane Stiverne, but injuries kept Vitali on the shelf for a prolonged period of time until he eventually retired. Vitali was in his 40s at the time that he walked away from the sport.
Many boxing fans are already starting to complain that they feel that Wladimir is using an injury as an excuse to get out of the fight with Fury. David Haye suffered two injuries during training camp for a fight against Fury, causing Fury to give up on the idea of fighting the 34-year-old. Some fans feel that Wladimir is looking to get out of the fight with Fury with injury excuses. They think that Wladimir was frightened by Fury at their recent press conference in London, England this week. Fury stood up during the training camp and took off his coat and was ready to fight Wladimir on the spot after he called him a “clown.” Some fans think that Wladimir was unnerved by the episode and wants no part of the 6’9″ Fury. It’s all ridiculous of course. Wladimir has never backed out of a fight with an opponent. He was supposed to fight Dereck Chisora in 2011, but went in another direction after suffering two injuries during training camp. But Wladimir fought a more dangerous fighter in David Haye instead of taking the Chisora fight.
Comments are closed.