Who wins? Would the difference in age of Wladimir Klitschko 41.1 years, and Wladimir Klitschko 39.7 years be crucial?
Klitschko was very slow and his reflexes have deteriorated in Fury fight, but he could still get a UD win vs AJ. I would say it's a 50/50 fight
Have to favor Klitschko here. The final years of a fighters career are when they really fall off. Vlad matches up favorably against AJ when he is within even 70% of his prime.
second worst performance of Wlads career. Not only was he almost 40 and coming off a terrible showing, He had a newborn and a crazy fiance who wasn't taking care of the baby. When they split, Wlad got custody until the war started.
A "terrible showing" where he won 9/10 rounds away from home against a 19-0 contender with an awkward style, not even 6 months removed from one of his career best performances. Wlad is an extremely wealthy man with an extensive support network: whether his wife, some highly paid nanny or his sister in law was taking care of his child is immaterial. His father being on his deathbed didn't prevent Wlad from producing a career best performance against Haye. Isn't it funny that one of Wlad's worst performances, Wilder's worst performance, Chisora's worst performance, Whyte's worst performance and Hammer's worst performance all came against Fury hmm...
AJ wins, I think despite him being older when they fought, I feel Wlad was hungrier and more motivated and therefore the better version.
It's not just the 17 months of extra age that was a hinderance, it was the 17 months out of the ring. Wlad got off to a slow start in the fight, not stamping his authority on the bout until halfway through the 5th round. Had Wlad been both younger and active, he would have likely stamped his authority on the bout earlier and had more in the tank to take AJ out without worrying about gassing out. He was also probably lacking the confidence he had previously as he was coming off a bad loss at home after over a decade of never even coming close to losing.
You guys talk about Wlad like he was a post-AJ 1 Andy Ruiz rather than the most focused, disciplined and motivated heavyweight champion ever. Wlad hadn't been more motivated to beat an opponent when facing Fury since he fought Haye.
That version of Wlad was not in a great mental space. Honestly I think the Fury and AJ versions of Wlad are broadly equivalent.
I'd still pick Joshua by KO. I think even around the time of the Bryant Jennings fight - Wlad has lost some ability to get his best/heavist shots off. I don't think a 39.7 year old Wlad would have fared much better in that later round phonebooth exchange, tbh. Wlad's major mistake during the fight was taking a chance to finish Joshua in the 5th (IIRC) round after Joshua gassed and he hurt him. Unfortunately, that's the same mistake that a Wlad of any age would have made after he hooked up with Steward and Banks
He didn't make the adjustments or get in the trenches against Fury but he retooled for Joshua and came mighty close to a ko win at 41. A younger version plus Steward with the same game plan closes the show.
Before the fight Wlad acknowledged Fury to be dangerous on account of his height, reach, weight, skills, movement, stance switching, unpredictability, confidence and will to win and must have known that his late coach Steward said that Fury was “the next dominant heavyweight”. Steward stated after the fact that they prepared unusually hard for the *Eddie Chambers* fight due to his speed and co-ordination, as well as the prospective *Chisora* fight due to Chisora’s aggression, mentality and toughness (despite Chambers and Chisora being bigger underdogs than Fury and having far fewer attributes) and Wlad claimed to be training four times a day for Fury. Wlad was even more motivated to beat Fury because Fury treated Wlad with total disrespect with his clowning and trash talking, as Haye did in a dumber and cruder way and Wlad’s father being on his deathbed didn’t stop him from producing a stellar performance against Haye. Wlad (one of the most motivated, focused and disciplined champions ever) was also closing in on several of Joe Louis’s records, which he coveted. Wlad was fighting in front of 50,000 home fans in Germany and millions of viewers worldwide, which was another incentive. If they hadn’t been worried about the serious possibility of losing they wouldn’t have played games with the gloves and scales and tried to rig the canvas to inhibit Fury’s movement.
Jonathan Banks (Wlad's trainer for the Fury & Joshua fights) was Steward's student and protégé. They would not have encouraged Wlad to follow different strategies or tactics. In any case, AJ was a big, strong guy and I wouldn't expect Wlad to be able to lean on him very well. Wlad passed up his chance to end things in his favor after he had AJ punched out and hurt at the end of the 5th and didn't pounce on him. I really do believe that he would have been already too old to win in a phonebooth against a recovered AJ by the time that he fought Fury.
