Joshua-Klitschko tickets selling fast

By Boxing News - 12/20/2016 - Comments

Image: Joshua-Klitschko tickets selling fast

By Jeff Aranow: Surprisingly, 50,000 tickets have already been sold for the April 29 fight between IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) and Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The Stadium has a seating capacity between 80,000 to 90,000 seats.

The Joshua-Klitschko fight will be televised on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK. It hasn’t been decided yet which network will be televising the fight in the U.S. HBO and Showtime are both looking be the network that will televise the Joshua-Klitschko fight.

It’s still up in the air which of the two will be the one to show the fight. However, it’s not going to be on pay-per-view. Joshua is still an unknown in the U.S, and Klitschko has never built a big enough fan base in the U.S for him to be considered for a PPV fight.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is hoping one day to transform him into a PPV attraction in the U.S, but that may not ever happen. Hearn can insist on Joshua fighting on PPV, but it’s still a long shot that he’ll be able to make the jump to a PPV attraction without him fighting better opposition than what he’s been facing since he turned pro.

It would seem likely that the Joshua-Klitschko fight will sell out in its entirety well before April 29. The Carl Froch vs. George Groves II fight took place in front of 80,000 boxing fans at Wembley Stadium on May 31, 2014. How many of those fans were paying fans and how many were complimentary tickets given to the fans to fill the stadium is unknown. Froch takes pride in the fight bringing in 80,000 fans.

The 50,000 tickets that have already been sold for the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight are the first batch of tickets that have gone on sale. There’s going to be a second batch that will go on sale in early next year on Jan.16 for the boxing public to purchase. The tickets can be purchased online at Stubhub.

Wladimir can still punch hard enough to knockout anybody in the heavyweight division. If he can land one of his left hooks or right hands, he’ll have a chance of knocking out Joshua. The British heavyweight hasn’t fought anyone with Wladimir’s kind of punching power since the 2012 Olympics in London, when he just barely edged Italy’s Roberto Cammarelle in the finals to win the gold medal. Wladimir is less able to throw his power punches now, and this could result in Joshua winning by a fast knockout on April 29 if nothing is being thrown back at him. Think Joshua vs. Eric Molina.

Joshua, 27, will have his IBF heavyweight title to be fought for by the 41-year-old Klitschko on April 29. In addition to Joshua’s IBF title, the vacant World Boxing Association heavyweight belt will be up for grabs in the fight. This is the world title that was recently held by Tyson Fury, who vacated the title along with his WBO title in order to take care of some personal problems in his life. Fury didn’t have his titles for very long. He beat Wladimir by a 12 round unanimous decision last year in November, and then failed to stay healthy long enough for them to fight the rematch that they scheduled twice.

The British boxing public is still interested in the Joshua-Klitschko fight even though Klitschko lost his last fight to Tyson Fury, and hasn’t fought in over a year. It’s a fight that the casual boxing fans might not realize how much of a mismatch it is. Klitschko hasn’t shown lately that he’s capable of beating even contenders at this late stage in his career.

Putting Klitschko in with Joshua right now at this juncture would seem like a recipe for disaster. The positive for Klitschko for this fight is he’s going to get a nice payday for losing the fight. He can take the payday and retire off the money. Wladimir has already made a lot of money in his long boxing career. If this is going to be Wladimir’s last fight of his career in getting knocked out by Joshua, then it’ll be a great way to go out with a nice money fight.

What we don’t want to see is Wladimir getting knocked out quickly by Joshua, and then turning around and continuing his career as a guy that keeps getting title shots that he loses one after another. We all remember how former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield went out with his career. When he was in his 40s and clearly over-the-hill, he was given opportunities on three occasions to fight for world titles against Chris Byrd, John Ruiz and Sultan Ibragimov. Hopefully, Wladimir doesn’t wind up sticking around too long with his own career.

If he loses to Joshua, it might be best for the 41-year-old Klitschko to call it a career instead of targeting WBC champion Deontay Wilder or WBO champion Joseph Parker for an immediate second title shot. Those are vulnerable heavyweight champions, but Wladimir doesn’t look capable of beating either of them or some of the top contenders like Luis Ortiz, David Haye, Jarrell Miller and Dillian Whyte.

Whyte might end up fighting Dereck Chisora on the undercard of the Joshua vs. Klitschko card. The undercard is still being formed at this point, and it’s not clear who Joshua’s promoters at Matchroom Sport will be putting on the card. Whyte vs. Chisora is a likely fight, and it’s quite possible we could see super middleweight Callum Smith and super bantamweight Scott Quigg fighting on the card in separate fights.