By Eric Baldwin: It took Wladimir Klitschko just three days to find a replacement opponent for Tyson Fury, as it appears that the big 6’6” Ukrainian heavyweight will be facing Anthony Joshua in November or December for one of Fury’s titles. Klitschko and his management are waiting to find out what the World Boxing Organization will be doing with Fury as far as stripping him or not of his WBO heavyweight title.
Wladimir and Joshua could be fighting in November or December for one of the two titles that Fury has holding since last November after beating Wladimir by a narrow 12 round decision. For Wladimir and Joshua to face each other, they’ll need a title to be up for grabs.
Klitschko manager Bernd Bönte said to the German News site BILD: “We are waiting for the reaction of the other world organizations from.”
The WBO is waiting for information to be sent by Fury about his medical situation. The WBO sent a letter out this week giving Fury 10 days to produce the information they’ve requested from him. They’ll then decide whether to strip Fury or let him remain their champion.
For Fury to keep his WBO and WBA titles, he’ll need to give an estimate for when he’ll be back inside the ring to resume defending his belts. Since it’s already been 10 months from the time that the 28-year-old British fighter won the belts, he’s probably going to need to come back from his personal issues quickly in order to keep one or both of his major titles.
It would be in the WBA and WBO’s best interest to quickly strip Fury if it looks like he’s not going to be returning to the ring anytime soon. If Fury can give them a definite date for him to be fighting again, they would be better off keeping him as their champion.
Fury is very popular, and a fight between him and Klitschko or Joshua would create tremendous interest from the boxing world. However, it doesn’t look like Fury will be back inside the ring anytime soon unfortunately. That’s too bad because a lot of fans want to see him back in action because they want to see him compete against the top fighters like Wladimir and Joshua. Fury did a good job of beating Wladimir last November.
A second fight might wind up with the same results with Fury beating Wladimir once again. We might not get a chance to ever find out if Fury’s win was a fluke thing or not if he fails to return to the ring. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn thinks Fury isn’t going to come back to boxing. He sees him as done. It’s up to Fury to prove him wrong by coming back from his problems.
Hearn said this to the mirror.co.uk:
“I’ve seen Tyson Fury in a fight night in Manchester on Saturday. He was completely out of shape and was booed. The organizations should, however, know him the belt. I do not think he will ever fight again.”
If Wladimir and the 6’6” Joshua wind up facing each other for Fury’s belts in November or December, it[s going to be a huge fight for the sport of boxing. There would be a lot of interest in the fight. Joshua, of course, would be the favorite, because he’s just now hitting his prime and is looking solid and almost unbeatable.
The 40-year-old Klitschko seems to have lost a significant part of his game since his win over Kubrat Pulev two years ago in 2014. Wladimir has looked like a completely different fighter in his matches against Bryant Jennings and Tyson Fury. The way that Wladimir looked in both of those fights, he’s not going to be able to beat Joshua when/if the two of them wind up facing each other.
“Joshua is currently strongest opponent for me in the heavyweight division,” said Klitschko to the BILD.
There are some other heavyweights that would give Wladimir huge problems if he fought them. WBC champion Deontay Wilder and Luis Ortiz would be very dangerous match-ups for Wladimir, because they’ve got size, power, and boxing skills and are very athletic. Ortiz is getting up there in age at 37, but he still has enough youth left to give Wladimir problems. Ortiz is one of those heavyweights that can do it all. He can punch, box, move, jab, and fight on the inside. Ortiz is like a combination of Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis.
“This is a 50-50 Fight,” said Bonte about the Klitschko-Joshua fight.
Bonte might be kidding himself if he truly believes this is an even fight. It might have been an even fight two years ago when Joshua was helping Wladimir out with sparring to get him ready for the Pulev fight, but not anymore. Wladimir has aged considerably in the last two years and lost a lot from his game.
The Wladimir that knocked out Pulev in five rounds in 2014 is not the fighter that we saw last November against Fury or the fighter that struggled to beat Jennings in April 2015. You also have to factor in Wladimir’s inactivity since his loss to Fury. That’s not good news for him, because it means he’ll be rusty when he gets inside the ring with the 26-year-old Joshua.
Joshua has won all 17 of his fights by knockout since turning pro in 2013 following his gold medal win in the 2012 London, Olympics. Joshua recently knocked out Dominic Breazeale, Charles Martin and Dillian Whyte. Those were supposed to be tough tests for Joshua, but he handled all three of those fighters easily. Joshua’s job was made easy by them not punching back at him for the duration of the fights.
In fairness to Whyte, he did try at least to generate some offense for two rounds, but once he reinjured his left shoulder, he was done for the night. Joshua was then able to open up on Whyte without worry about getting hit back and hurt like he’d been in the 2nd round.
It would be a real surprise if Wladimir were to beat Joshua because right now he’s not looking so good after his loss to Fury. The time out of the ring isn’t going to help Wladimir. He’s likely going to be really rusty when he eventually faces Joshua.