By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 53 KOs) says he’s interested in facing unbeaten British heavyweight Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14 KOs) at some point in 2016 if things play out perfectly with Joshua winning his very, very difficult fight against Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs) on December 12th, and if Klitschko defeats his #1 WBO mandatory challenger Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) this month on November 28th.
Klitschko says these things would need to play out perfectly before there would be any thought to a fight against Joshua. Further, WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) will be a part of the puzzle as well for Wladimir, because that’s a fight that he wants if/when Wilder defeats his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin in the first quarter of 2016.
You would have to assume that Joshua would come later after Wladimir faces Wilder for the WBC strap. I mean, why in the heck would Wladimir choose to fight the 6’6”, 250lb Joshua in a voluntary defense if there was nothing new to accomplish from the fight? There would be no gain in fighting Joshua under those circumstances.
“Anthony Joshua first has to fight Dillian Whyte on December 12. Let’s do it step by step,” Klitschko said on his Facebook earlier today. ”First of all, I need to conquer Tyson Fury and Anthony needs to take care of his business. Next year, we’ll see how the cookie crumbles.”
I totally agree with Wladimir. There’ no point in him talking about fighting Joshua now because there are so many things that need to fall into place before the two of them were ever to face each other. Heck, the 39-year-old Wladimir might grow old overnight and lose to the 6’9” Fury on November 28th of this month in their fight at the ESPRIT Arena in Dusselforf, Germany. If that happens, then we’d be seeing a rematch between Wladimir and Fury that would be taking place in the first quarter of 2016, barring any kind of injury that might cause the fight to be delayed until mid to late 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMcy_08PuaU
You have to believe that the winner of the Klitschko-Fury fight will be targeting Deontay Wilder for his WBC title next year. They’ll want the WBC title because it’s the last belt in the heavyweight division. As for Joshua, he’s no more important than any other contender in the division. He’s just another guy waiting in line.
Joshua isn’t a star in Germany, Eastern Europe, United States or Canada. He’s just a guy that won a controversial Gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics and is popular only in the UK.
“I’ve been trying to get the WBC title and unify all the titles. Due to some internal boxing politics it was impossible so Deontay Wilder is the WBC champion,” Wladimir said. ”He has his mandatory challenger in Alexander Povetkin and then we’ll see. Obviously it would be nice to unify all the titles.”
As you can see, Wladimir is saying that Joshua isn’t all that important right now because Wladimir is focused on the Fury fight, and then after that a fight against the winner of the Wilder-Povetkin fight. Obviously, you can imagine that Wladimir would prefer to fight Wilder rather than Povetkin, because he already whipped Povetkin two years ago, and there would arguably be a heck of a lot more interest in a Wilder vs. Klitschko fight than a second fight between Wladimir and Povetkin.
The thing is Joshua has a very good chance of losing to Whyte next month, so it’s not even worth talking about Joshua as a possibility for Klitschko. Joshua’s stamina will be severely tested by the big punching Whyte, and if he’s forced to go past the 3rd round, I can definitely see Joshua, with his bodybuilder type body, running out of gas and getting knocked out. Whyte has got a ton of talent, and a ton of power going for him. Whyte already dominated Joshua in the amateurs in beating him by a decision in a 2-knockdown performance. I imagine that Whyte knows how to beat Joshua from that fight, and I think he’ll do a repeat when they face each other next month in London, UK. It’ll be a huge blow to Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn’s dream of having Joshua win a world title.
If Whyte can handle Joshua’s flurry of shots in the first three rounds, he could expose him as nothing more than another Frank Bruno type heavyweight. Once the blueprint is created in how to beat Joshua, I see it becoming easy for other fighters to do the same thing with him.
Right now, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has been working his magic to make Joshua look good by matching him with gaud awful opposition. It’s the same with how Hearn has matched his fighter Kell Brook. He’s pitted Brook and Joshua with just terrible opposition that has made them look better than they actually are, and has given them a sense of invincibility.
You can see how confident they are anytime they’re interviewed. But it’s going to be interesting to see how Joshua and Brook look like when they finally are no longer fighting fodder. I think it’s going to go badly for both of them. I already had Brook losing to Shawn Porter last year in his clinch-filled fight. To me, Brook is 34-1 now, and he might wind up 34-2 if he can’t clinch his way to another controversial decision in his next fight.
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