By Scott Gilfoid: Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) and IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs0 are in negotiations for a possible June 4th date in Austria at the beautiful 32,000 seat Klagenfurt’s Woerthersee Stadium. The venue hasn’t been confirmed yet, but hopefully Fury and his team don’t drag their feet over the potential venue. If Fury tries to hold out to get the fight staged in the UK, it could wind up hurting them if he can’t sellout any of the football stadiums.
Klitschko and Fury have been in negotiations for some time, and it’s unbelievable that they still haven’t nailed down a date and venue for their rematch. It’s kind of sad really. Both fighters will burn have the year and likely end up with just two fights taking place this year.
Heck, if they negotiate like this for their next fights, it wouldn’t be surprising if they only have one fight to show for 2016. It’s just a real pity. You’ve got talents like Deontay Wilder fighting three times per year looking to fight four times per year. They need to follow Deontay’s lead and try and get as many fights as possible.
“Yes, that’s right. We are in negotiations, but for confidential reasons, we can’t give out any more information at this stage,” Nicola Pattberg of the Klitschko Management Group (KMG) told Austrian paper Kleine Zeitung.
Klitschko vs. Fury won’t be taking place at the huge 80,000 seat Wembley Stadium in London, UK. It’s unclear why the fight won’t take place there. My guess is it would be too big of a venue for an unproven ticket seller like Fury. If he had a track record for at least selling out 40,000 seat stadiums in the past, then you could say that a fight at Wembley Stadium would be a wise move. But with Fury someone who doesn’t have the proven record of having sold a mess of tickets, you don’t really want to take chances at booking a giant outdoor stadium in the UK, at least I don’t.
I wouldn’t blame Wladimir if he wasn’t ready to fall in behind Fury in a lockstep manner if his management started talking outdoor stadiums in the UK. The last thing WLadimir needs to do is blindly agree to fighting Fury in the UK and wind up fighting in front of 10,000 fans at best in an 80,000 seat stadium. That would potentially be embarrassing. I’m just saying.
Fury previously beat Wladimir by a narrow 12 round unanimous decision last November in Dusseldorf, Germany. The fight was fought in front of a massive crowd rumored to be over 50,000 at the ESPRIT Arena. That fight showed how Wladimir can sell tickets in Germany. I imagine we’d see the same thing in beautiful nearby Austria. Wladimir is just so popular in those counties.
They’ve seemingly adopted the Eastern European talent, and he’s responded with win after win until recently. Wladimir was smart enough to have a rematch clause in his contract with Fury from their first fight, which is probably the only reason why we’re seeing a rematch.
If there wasn’t a rematch clause, we’d probably be seeing Fury heading towards a unification fight against the likes of Lucas Browne. Fury would still probably have his IBF title, because he would have been able to immediately defend it against the #1 IBF ordered challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov. That would have probably been a slam dunk win for Fury due to his huge height and reach advantage over the short 6’2” Glazkov.
I think I speak for a lot of boxing fans when I say that Klitschko and Fury need to get it over with already. They need to negotiate this fight and get in the ring so that the fans can see whether Fury has the ability to hold onto the title. I personally see Fury as a one-hit wonder.
I think he’s someone that had his 15 minutes of fame in beating Wladimir on the worst night of his career, and now will be quickly be put in his place by Wladimir. I see Wladimir knocking Fury out straightaway in the rematch, and sending him skittering back to the contender ranks from which he’ll never return to the championship level. Fury will still make some cash fighting the likes of David Haye, Anthony Joshua and Charles Martin, but I can’t see him beating any of those guys.
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