When Wladimir Klitschko fought Chris Byrd in their first encounter in 2000 for the WBO title, do you

Interesting and informative take. If I was Wladimir I would have taken being pushed into this fight as a lack of confidence in me on Universum’s side. Being towards the front of the line for a shot at Lewis would have meant worldwide exposure if the fight took place, and instant superstar status if he won. He stood to make $5-10 million dollars per fight on the backend of a victory over Lewis for the WBC belt, where he only made about $500k-1 million per fight after defeating Byrd for the WBO belt. From Universum’s standpoint I totally get it. There was no guarantee Wlad would get the Lewis fight much less win and they wanted to keep the WBO belt in their control. To their and Wladimir’s credit they did an incredible job of promoting him as WBO champion in the early 2000’s and Wlad at times looked a lot better than Lewis in his reign as WBO champ before the Sanders loss.

 

I’m sure by 2003 both brothers knew their value and had certainly outgrown their German promoter Universum. The only reason they used Universum in the first place was the bad impression they got when meeting with Don King coming out of the amateurs. But money talks and I’m sure over time they realized how much money they were losing by not using one of the big American promoters. They were in a unique position that most fighters never get by being able to promote themselves at that point. You need money, contacts, and notoriety to pull that off which they had.