With a Saturday night win over a determined and competitive Bryant Jennings, champion Wladimir Klitschko made it 18 straight successful title defenses and 22 straight victories dating back to 2004. Klitschko won on comfortable scores following an often uncomfortable fight.
Wladimir Klitschko’s next fight: Fury and Glazkov looming, Wilder not likely
Wladimir Klitschko showed a little vulnerability against Bryant Jennings, but will his next opponent be able to do anything similar?
Elsa/Getty Images
The performance that Jennings (19-1, 10 KO) was able to put on may have made a few more heavyweights a little bit anxious to see if Klitschko, now 39 and certainly at the back end of his long boxing career, just might be fading a little bit.
So who could Klitschko face next, and does anyone have a real shot at beating him?
The big name out there is the one other man in the world who can make a (bogus) claim to being world heavyweight champion: Deontay Wilder. Wilder holds the WBC belt, which is one of the four recognized major titles in the sport, along with the WBO, WBA, and IBF, all held by Klitschko. Klitschko is also recognized as the lineal champion of the division by both The RING and the newer Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, both recognized by various fight geeks the world over as being more legitimate than the sport’s goofy, money-hungry sanctioning bodies.
Wilder is an interesting proposition on paper. A 6’7 American, a former Olympic bronze medalist (2008) and unbeaten in 33 pro fights. His last fight, where he took the WBC belt from Bermane Stiverne, was the first time he didn’t stop an opponent inside the distance. Going 12 rounds that night, he showed he had the stamina and the patience to grind out a victory over a tougher opponent. Prior to that, he’d never gone past four rounds.
For a long time, Wilder’s opposition was criticized as being overly easy, but he and his team always took it in stride, and by beating Stiverne the way he did, in a shutout or near-shutout manner, he proved that he was more than a mere mirage. Lots of mediocre fighters have had KO streaks against even worse competition.
But the big man from Alabama is a highly unlikely next opponent for Klitschko. Klitschko has said he does want that fight so that he can fully unify all four title belts and bring the WBC title back into the family. His older brother Vitali held that title from 2008 to 2012 before retiring to go into politics in Ukraine.
Title unification fights can be tough to make in boxing, though. Sanctioning bodies don’t really like unification most of the time. Although a star and drawing card like Klitschko can get away with it easier than most fighters, as he’s proven by holding three of the belts simultaneously since beating David Haye to add the WBA trinket in 2011.
More pressing is the matter of Klitschko’s potential mandatory challengers with his sanctioning bodies. The WBA currently has no official No. 1 contender, and Jennings was their No. 2 contender before the loss to Klitschko. There is also Ruslan Chagaev, who holds the bogus on top of bogus WBA “world” title, while Klitschko holds the WBA “super” title, but Klitschko already beat Chagaev in 2009, and nobody is itching to make that happen again, so let’s forget it. The WBA is a dead issue here, it would seem.
The IBF’s current No. 1 rated contender is Vyacheslav “Czar” Glazkov, a fellow Ukrainian who last fought on March 14, beating former cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham in Montreal. Glazkov is not a mandatory challenger yet, and the IBF has no No. 2 ranked contender. Usually how that works is that a pair of fighters will be matched in an “eliminator” for the No. 2 spot, and then the winner of that fight would face the No. 1 fighter, in this case Glazkov, in a “final eliminator,” with the winner then named mandatory challenger.
More intriguing than Glazkov is the prospect of Tyson Fury, a colorful, controversial British fighter, who is currently the WBO’s No. 1 ranked contender. Fury, 26, has been grabbing headlines ever since he turned pro just over six years ago. He is a brash, loud-mouthed type, and at 6’9, would actually have a notable height advantage on Klitschko, something very unfamiliar to him.
Fury (24-0, 18 KO) was most recently in the ring in February, when he dominated also-ran Christian Hammer in London, stopping the German after eight rounds of one-sided action. Fury said then that it was more a stay-busy fight than anything, and after the fight, he sang about wanting Klitschko next. Literally, he sang in the ring about it.
Just before that fight, Fury told BoxNation that beating Klitschko would be easy. Fury is certainly savvy about getting attention for himself (whether good, bad, or ugly), and there’s no doubt that he’s also shown some steady improvement in the ring. He doesn’t really believe it’s an easy fight, because he’s a lot smarter than he makes out a lot of the time.
But Fury does pose an intriguing potential challenge for Klitschko. Fury is young, tall, physically strong, and moves very well for a guy his size. He’s got a long reach at 85”, three inches more than Klitschko. Jennings, 6’3, had that same reach advantage, but didn’t have the height to use it like Fury might.
There is, however, a question of whether or not Fury will actually fight Klitschko. That's not to say he's afraid, but Klitschko's team is notorious for dominating negotiations, as Klitschko is almost always the only draw involved in a bout. Fury, however, does have his own fan base, and does bring some money to the table. The last time we saw that, really, was with David Haye, a fight that was for a while the Mayweather-Pacquiao of the heavyweight division. The one that should have been made, but the two sides basically could not or would not get together and make the deal. Once they did, it turned out to be one of the most disappointing fights of recent memory, with Klitschko winning handily.
Will Klitschko give enough for Fury to take the fight? Is it worth it for Fury to take the chance if not? That’s the real question about making that matchup a reality. If Fury is named an official mandatory challenger for the belt, it could be easier to get the fight done by going to purse bid and splitting up the money that way.
So Fury is probably the lead candidate, at least in terms of combining actual interest in a fight, availability, and a stated desire to face Klitschko. Glazkov could be an option. And then there are a host of others out there who aren’t quite as interesting as Glazkov, let alone Fury, including 43-year-old professional Klitschko harasser Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs, a former champion who is well past his prime, but has barked enough that he’s at least on the edge of the discussion.
Klitschko is still in control of the heavyweight division, but as we saw on Saturday night, there are some hungry fighters out there starting to make some noise. Jennings had some success, even coming up short. Whether or not someone else can duplicate or improve upon that success remains to be seen.
See More:
