With Tyson Fury out of the picture in defending his IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles against Wladimir Klitschko, one possible fight that could occur in place of that is a match between Wladimir and IBF champion Anthony Joshua for one of Fury’s titles.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is talking about possibly matching him against Wladimir for Fury’s World Boxing Association title if the WBA can strip him of the title in time for Joshua and Wladimir to fight in November. Fury and Klitschko were supposed to fight on October 29 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Fury pulled out of the fight, leaving Klitschko without the rematch and unable to fight for the titles that he lost to Fury last November. A fight between Wladimir and Joshua would make big news around the world with boxing fans. It would make good money on pay-per-view, and could easily sellout a stadium in the UK or in Germany.
“It’s a natural fight,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “On Saturday, we reached out to Berndt Boente and since then we’ve had a couple of positive conversations and it’s a fight he really wants. If the WBA belt is on the line, which I believe it would be, then it’s a unification fight between Joshua and Klitschko.”
Wladmir has a good chance of fighting for at least one of Fury’s titles. Joshua is a different story. He’s a champion, and unless one of the sanctioning bodies chose to let him fight for one of Fury’s titles, he’s not likely to be the one facing Wladimir.
Joshua helped Wladimir with sparring before his fight against Kubrat Pulev two years ago in 2014. The sparring sessions between Joshua and Wladimir were said to be competitive. It was said to have been a 50-50 affair. However, you can’t learn much from sparring because it’s not full out. At this point, you would have to favor Joshua to beat Wladimir based off how poor the Ukrainian has looked in his last two fights against Fury and Bryant Jennings.
The only way Wladimir would have a good chance of beating Joshua is if he were able to jab and move around the ring for 12 rounds. Wladimir has the longer reach, and he’s a lot more nimble-footed that Joshua, who has packed on a lot of muscle since turning pro at 225lbs three years ago in 2013. Joshua is now 250lbs, and he seems to do best when he’s facing guys that stand directly in front of him that will allow him to first off his big power shots. Joshua hasn’t fought anyone with a great jab like Wladimir as of yet. Joshua also hasn’t fought anyone with the boxing skills that Wladimir possesses.
“There seems to be real interest from both sides to get this done,” said Hearn to espn.com. “It’s the young superstar against one of the modern day great heavyweights and it’s a huge fight. I met with AJ and if it’s the right deal and a unification fight, then he is happy to take it.”
Whether the Klitschko-Joshua fight takes place or not will largely be determined on the world title belts being stripped from the 28-year-old Fury so that they can be at stake for the fight. Wladimir wants to recapture all of his old titles.
It’s unfortunate for Wladimir that he’s not being given a chance to win the belts back inside the ring with Fury, because it would look better if he won the titles back against the guy that beat him. Besides that, it would give Wladimir a confidence boost to defeat Fury, and then move forward to a match against Joshua in 2017. Wladimir was interested in fighting Joshua anyway at some point, but the fight might be happening a little sooner than he expected it to.
Wladimir and Joshua both weigh around the same amount, but Joshua looks so much bigger because of his upper body. Wladimir is a lot more agile with movement, and he’s able to get around the ring really well. Joshua tends to shuffle forward looking to slam jabs and right hands into the face of his opponents. Neither fighter throws a lot of body shots. Wladimir almost never throws to the body. Joshua tends to jab to the body. With both fighters being 6’6”, they don’t appear to be willing to risk throwing body shots.
Hearn has recently been talking about matching Joshua against his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Joseph Parker next on November 26 on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. However, Hearn will be now be waiting on that fight to see if he can get the Joshua-Klitschko fight put together.
If the WBA or WBO is willing to strip Fury quickly so that a fight between Wladimir and Joshua can get made for November, then that’s a fight that could take place. It’s still not likely that we’ll see the fight in November, because it would require for the WBA or WBO to strip Fury right away. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Even if it did, the sanctioning body would need to give the green light to Wladimir fighting Joshua rather than a top contender for the belt.
It would be hardly fair for the contenders ranked by the WBA or WBO to be skipped over for a title shot with Joshua jumping ahead of them. It would be a different story if Joshua wasn’t the IBF champion and was highly ranked by the WBA or WBO. then the sanctioning could justify the fight. But if Joshua is given the opportunity to fight Wladimir for the vacant WBA or WBO belt, it would look like Joshua and Hearn were being given favoritism by the sanctioning bodies.
There’s no way of knowing how long Tyson Fury will be out of action with his problems. If the sanctioning bodies had an idea of how long he would be unable to defend his belts, then I think there would be more of a chance of keeping his belts.
There would be a lot of money at stake in a Wladimir vs. Joshua fight. There would be the money from England’s Sky Box Office PPV, and with the German RTL. There would also be money from one of the giant cable networks HBO and Showtime in the U.S.