Wilder v Wlad Klitschko

He could have come back and proved you both right, but he stayed retired and that speaks louder than words imo.

 

Why you take my post personal? Never said I was better. But here's the thing. Once you have a belt, you aren't a "baby" anymore. If you are still trying to 'develop', don't fight for a belt only to face sub-par comp after. Not rocket science really.

 

You act like Finkel's post-fight comment in January 2015 was the final word on it.

Wilder and Wlad repeatedly commented on fighting each other after that. All that year in fact. Wilder attended Wlad-Jennings. And Wlad said he expected them to fight in 2016.

When Wilder won the title, Jennings and Fury were also among Wilder's top WBC contenders, but both chose to accept fights with Wlad instead. (More belts, more money, older fighter.)

Then Wlad lost to Fury.

Klitschko Hopes Deontay Wilder Fight Happens in 2016
April 26, 2015

Wladimir Klitschko is the heavyweight champion and has three world titles, with the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization belts, and as the World Boxing Association’s “super” champion. The only other major titleholder is Deontay Wilder, an American who won the World Boxing Council belt in January with a decision over Bermane Stiverne.

Wilder has said he wants to fight Klitschko. The same can be said for Klitschko’s desires. He wants to unify all four belts, picking up a WBC title that was previously held by Wladimir’s older brother, Vitali, before Vitali retired.

“It’s not going to happen the next fight of mine, because I think Deontay needs to defend his title first time after he won it,” Klitschko said Saturday after topping Bryant Jennings at Madison Square Garden in New York City. “Probably such fight [between us] can happen sometime beginning next year. Hopefully it’s going to happen sometime beginning next year.”

Klitschko is due to make defenses against his mandatory challengers. He took out the challenger for his IBF belt, Kubrat Pulev, last November. The WBO has mandated that Klitschko next face its top-rated heavyweight, Tyson Fury.

That aligns with what Wilder said on April 24, the night before Klitschko-Jennings, when asked about the timing of a fight with Klitschko. Wilder pointed to 2016 as a likelier time, given the number of mandatories Klitschko has.

“We’ll see what happens. He wants the [WBC] belt. I want to fight for the rest of his belts to unify the division. It’s going to be good to bring the belts back to America. We haven’t had an undisputed heavyweight champion in years. It would be my pleasure to be able to do so,” Wilder said.

Klitschko has a deal with HBO. Wilder’s adviser, Al Haymon, doesn’t currently have a working relationship with that network, which is seemingly the sole major boxing broadcaster in the United States not airing Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions series. Still, Wilder thinks the fight can be made despite the politics and conflicting priorities of the boxing business.

“I don’t feel it’ll be a hindrance. I think all those guys will come together and we’ll go with what makes sense,” Wilder said. “It’ll be one of the biggest heavyweight bouts in years. Who would want to miss out on that? By that time, those guys will iron out their differences among each other and let the fight happen and give the people what they want to see. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”


Wilder: Klitschko Should Fight Me Sooner Rather Than Later. He's Getting Old
June 1, 2015

WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder was ringside in New York to see Wladimir Klitschko complete his latest defence of the other three world titles in the division. The Ukrainian’s performance against Bryant Jennings did not impress Wilder.

“To me his age is showing. He’s getting older,” the American said of Klitschko. “His age is definitely getting to him and it showed in the Jennings fight.

“He was slower, he wasn’t always accurate with all his punches. He still has stamina problems. That’s what I got out of that fight.”

The WBC ruler hopes for a heavyweight unification clash with Klitschko next year.

“He’s got a lot of mandatories lined up. I’m definitely not going to sit around. I told people all the time I want to be a busy heavyweight. I want to be active and I promised people that,” Deontay said. “2016 it happens, it happens. That’s a title not if it’s going to happen but when it’s going to happen. If you ask me, that’s something on his behalf that should happen earlier rather than later. Because he’s getting older. I’m still a young guy. There’s still a lot of things that I can adjust to, I can get good at, I’m still growing. There’s nothing he’s going to change from this point on. He’s still got the same style, he’s still got the same movement, there’s nothing going to change.”

In the mean time Wilder insists he will remain active. Recovered from a hand injury, he boxes Eric Molina on June 13. After he plans to fight in September, then December or January. It’s means he’s keeping a look out for opponents.

David Haye has expressed on interest in fighting Wilder, after some tune-up contests. “In the future David will be a great opponent,” the American said. “I like that fight. We’ve got to see what we’ve got to see. Is David still the same guy from all the injures and stuff like? That’s definitely something in the future.”

He continued, “While [Klitschko] is having his mandatories, I think me and Jennings having an all-USA clash, I think that would be a great fight before the Klitschko fight.”

Wilder did want to make his first world title defense against Britain’s Tyson Fury.

“His team has other plans and I understand that." Wilder said. "When I was coming up, we had goals we had plans that we wanted to do. We followed those plans. By following those plans I became the champion. I understand that part of business and what they want to do. It’s just like Bryant Jennings was my mandatory but they chose to go to Klitschko. Fury, they’re choosing to go Klitschko, which I understand. He’s the older guy. They feel like they’re younger. They may have something more that they can prove in the ring, instead of going to another young guy, that’s athletic and strong, has speed and heart in the ring. So I understand."

The WBC champion feels like Fury could well upset Klitschko.

“I think Fury, due to what we saw in Klitschko’s last fight, I think Fury has got a high percentage chance. It’s going to depend on Fury, how seriously he’s taking it. Is he really about the glory or the money?” Wilder said. “In my opinion I think it’ll only be up to Fury and what his mindset is towards that fight. I definitely think he’s got a high percentage chance of being able to beat him. He’s a taller guy. It would be harder to lean on him. Of course, we’ve seen many times that smaller guys have hit Fury and he went down. The question is, if Klitschko connects, will he go down? If he goes down, will he get back up?”


Wilder Plans On Taking Klitschko's Belts in 2016
Oct. 6, 2015

Deontay Wilder has some grand plans for the heavyweight division as well as himself, but first he and Wladimir Klitschko have to get their mandatory defenses out of the way. Klitschko has been rescheduled to fight Tyson Fury on November 28 after sustaining a leg injury and the WBC has said that Wilder's next fight must be against his mandatory challenger, Alexander Povetkin.

The problem for Wilder is that Povetkin already has a fight scheduled fight with Mariusz Wach on Nov. 4 and WIlder and his team don't think they should have to wait on Povetkin to keep an active schedule.

Truth is, waiting a month isn't all that long, but his team seems to want to get moving on his next fight right away. It doesn't seem that the WBC will sanction that route though, as they insist that he needs to make his mandatory defense in his next outing.

So should Wilder takes care of that business, and if Klitschko takes care of Fury, Wilder sees a big unification fight being set up in 2016.

"Hopefully, Klitschko and I can fight sometime in the next year. We've got to get these mandatories out of the way first, so people have to stay patient. The key is to stay patient. This is a process and a business," said Wilder.

"That fight will surely come around as long as I keep winning, which I will, and as long as he keeps winning. That fight should come around real soon and we'll have an undisputed world heavyweight champion, which will be me."

Although some people question Wilder's chin, and experience against top-flight fighters, Wilder believes he knows what's in store with Klitschko as he's met him in the ring before.

"Klitschko and I have sparred before. I'm the younger guy and the more time that goes by, that's an advantage for me," he stated. "Each and every fight, I prove a little bit more about what people don't know about me."

 

After Wlad lost to Fury, he pursued a Fury rematch. When that fell through, Wlad didn't pursue Wilder.

Instead, he targeted the winner of the Charles Martin-Anthony Joshua fight and the IBF belt. Even flew to Manchester to attend Joshua-Molina, but didn't attend Wilder defenses in the US, where Klitschko actually lived at the time.

After Wlad lost to Joshua, the WBC even made Wlad the #2 contender. But Wlad opted to retire. (Which was fine. I'm not faulting him for it.)


Deontay Wilder, Charles Martin Keep Same Goals After Wladimir Klitschko's Loss
Jan. 15, 2016

When the entire last decade of the heavyweight landscape changed, Deontay Wilder was in Hawaii watching it all slip away. He told Forbes in November that he was going to be the one to beat Wladimir Klitschko to end his nine-year reign as the world's heavyweight champion. Wilder was going to be the one to get the recognition, the one to command the biggest paycheck, the one to become a star.

Instead it was Tyson Fury who topped Klitschko in a big surprise, and all Wilder, who was on vacation in Hawaii with his family, could do was watch helplessly on TV.

A few months later, Wilder doesn't say that his whole paradigm had shifted (though how could it have not as he watched Klitschko put up a subpar effort against Fury?), but when he faces Artur Szpilka on Saturday night to defend his title, Wilder still will be focused on the future.

"Of course, everybody wanted to be the guy to beat Klitschko, because he had been around for such a long time," Wilder told Forbes last week. "That didn't happen for me. In the boxing business, a lot of things happen, whether they're supposed to happen or not. But I can't dwell on that. The only thing I look forward to is being the undisputed champion. Klitschko's loss doesn't stop that goal. I can't have a pity party because another fighter beat him. I'll just have to whip (Fury). Everything still goes on as planned."

In order for that to happen, Wilder (35-0, 34 knockouts), who's held his version of the title belt since beating Bermane Stiverne a year ago and has defended it twice since then, will need to get by the unheralded Artur Szpilka (20-1, 15 KOs), who's trying to become the first Polish heavyweight belt-holder in history but who's coming into the fight as an 8-1 underdog.

Though Fury won three of the four heavyweight belts from Klitschko, he's already had to drop one, meaning that when Charles Martin (22-0-1, 20 KOs) and Vyacheslav Glazkov (20-0-1, 13 KOs) battle on the Wilder-Szpilka undercard at the Barclays Center in New York (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Showtime), the winner will take home the vacant belt.

Which means that unifying the titles will get more time consuming for Wilder. If he had the opportunity to beat Klitschko to add those three belts to Wilder's lone trinket, Wilder's mission would have been done, unifying the championship in a single evening.

Instead, Fury has two belts, Wilder owns one, and the Martin-Glazkov winner will gain the other.

"The heavyweight division] was going to open up eventually," Martin said on a recent teleconference. "Klitschko had a very good run. He's outstanding, an awesome fighter. We had big plans of knocking him out as well. We wanted to knock him out and become superstars overnight. ... [But] it's our time now. There are new fighters on the map."

And for his part, Wilder seems unfazed by his recent surroundings: the Klitschko loss, the paradigm shift and the rockier road to unification.

"I don't think it makes it more difficult," Wilder said. "I don't see any other fighter as a threat. I'm super confident in my skills and my determination to win. I've been destined to do this."


Anthony Joshua Will Not Fight Wlad Klitschko in 2016
4 October 2016

Britain's IBF world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will not fight former champion Wladimir Klistchko in 2016 but promoter Eddie Hearn expects a fight in the spring.

The pair were close to agreeing a bout for 10 December but Klitschko has picked up a "minor injury" in training.

The WBA had also yet to state whether its vacant title would be on the line.

"While waiting on the WBA and with Klitschko's injury, it was a non-starter," said Hearn.

"Let's get this over the line for March or April."

Hearn has reiterated that Joshua will fight in Manchester on 10 December but expects an official announcement on a 2017 meeting with Ukrainian Klitschko later this week.

"We are in talks with the Millennium Stadium [now the Principality Stadium] about their dates in March and April - it has a roof and it can be a bit nippy in London in March or April."

British heavyweight Tyson Fury has vacated the WBA and WBO titles and had his boxing licence stripped by the British Boxing Board of Control pending further investigation into anti-doping and medical issues".

Hearn is hopeful the WBA will make its title available for the proposed meeting of Joshua and Klitschko. New Zealander Joseph Parker is set to fight Mexico’s Andy Ruiz Jr. for the WBO belt on 10 December.

Klitschko, who has 64 wins and four losses in his career, lost the WBA, WBO and IBF titles to Fury in 2015.

Joshua picked up the IBF title - vacated by Fury as he did not face a mandatory challenger - by knocking out Charles Martin in April.

Hearn expects Joshua's camp to decide on his next opponent in the next 48 hours.

Last week, 2008 Olympic bronze medalist and former British champion David Price tweeted Joshua stating “I’m coming to knock you out on December 10.”


Klitschko Lands WBC #2 Ranking
May 12, 2017
Former division ruler Wladimir Klitschko (64-5, 53 KOs) has been rewarded in defeat, as the World Boxing Council has appointed him as the #2 ranked challenger to current world champion Deontay Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs).

As of last month, Klitschko was not ranked in the top 15 under the WBC. He did hold a number 2 ranking under the WBA and a number 3 ranking under the IBF.

Last month before a record crowd of 90,000 at Wembley, Klitschko returned for the first time since losing his heavyweights titles to Tyson Fury in November 2015 in Germany.

Klitschko fought Anthony Joshua with the IBF, WBA, IBO world titles at stake. He survived a knockdown in the fifth to drop Joshua in the sixth, but the Olympic gold medal winner dropped Klitschko twice in the eleventh to secure the stoppage win.

There is an immediate rematch clause, which Klitschko will make a decision on in the coming weeks. His decision is expected to come down by early June. He could very well retire or decide to go in another direction.

The man holding the WBC's top spot in the ranking, Bermane Stiverne, is the mandatory challenger to Wilder's title.

Wilder has already been ordered to defend his title against Stiverne. The fight will be a rematch of their January 2015 encounter, which saw Wilder dominate his way to a twelve round unanimous decision to capture the WBC belt from Stiverne.

Sitting at #3 under the WBC is Cuba's Luis Ortiz, who is already the WBA's mandatory challenger to Joshua, and the hard puncher is already pushing the issue under legal threat to get the British champion in the ring. Ortiz will likely have to wait, because even if Klitschko decides to take a pass on the rematch, then Joshua's handlers have already made it clear that IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev would be next.



Wlad Klitschko In Line To Fight Deontay Wilder
May 15 2017

IN a surprising turn of events, former heavyweight ruler Wladimit Klitschko has been installed as the No 2 challenger for Deontay Wilder’s WBC title.

The WBC recently released their latest set of rankings and, with the 41-year-old not previously ranked in their top 15, he has jumped straight in at No 2 after his dramatic loss to WBA and IBF champion Anthony Joshua last month.

‘Dr Steelhammer’ sits one place behind Bermane Stiverne, who Wilder has been ordered to fight next. Wilder outpointed Stiverne in January 2015 to win the WBC title.

However, Klitschko is unlikely to turn his attention to the outspoken American, who was ringside at Wembley Stadium for his fight with Joshua. Wladimir is currently on holiday and will make a decision on his future in the coming weeks.

According to his manager, Bernd Boente, the two options for Klitshko are retirement or a rematch with Joshua, for which there was a clause in the contracts of their first meeting.

During his near-decade-long reign as unified heavyweight champion, Klitschko never held the WBC title, though his older brother Vitali – who is now bizarrely named ‘Emeritus Champion’ – did.

Wilder was originally set to make a mandatory defence against former Klitschko victim Alexander Povetkin last year, but the Russian failed a drug test and the fight was postponed. Povetkin was then set to fight Stiverne in a final eliminator, only to fail another drug test, which saw him removed from the WBC rankings and Stiverne made No 1 challenger.

Unbeaten Cuban Luis Ortiz sits one place behind Klitschko in the WBC rankings, however he is the No 1 challenger with the WBA and awaits his shot at Joshua.

 

*yawn*

 

Boxing is always fluid. The narrative you're pushing totally flipped within weeks. One post-fight quote a decade ago doesn't tell the whole story.

 

Actions speak louder than words

 

Right. Wlad and Wilder both had mandatories. Both figured they'd fight in 2016. Wlad lost his mandatory. (Wilder's mando failed all his drug tests for all his fights the whole year and got dropped from the ratings.)

After Wlad lost, he didn't go after Wilder or the WBC belt he claimed he always wanted. Instead, he ignored Wilder and went after the newest belt holder (Joshua) who even Joshua's own fans on this board at the time thought was too inexperienced and was being rushed into fighting Charles 'freaking' Martin. (I thought they were being ridiculous.)

When Wlad lost to Joshua, too, the WBC made him a top contender, and Wlad retired. And he should've. His time had passed.

That's what happened. But just focus on one quote Finkel made 10 years ago instead.

So many arguments around here are based on one quote and "conveniently" leave out everything happening around it and afterward.

Post-fight proclamations tend to last as long as the post-fight press conference.

 

Honestly. People are so dense at times.

life and negations and business are fluid, they don’t always work out even with the best intentions, as dubble chin has shown above.
But yawn at evidence, if you want to continue a narrative.

 

But but but finkle once said “xyz”


It gets tiresome.

also, on a side note, when you win a belt yes you should be willing to fight anybody, in fact when you debut you should but if you have a good team they will pick the best time for each fight. This goes with every fighter, not just wilder.

 

You Wilder apologists are something else. If they were ready and confident, they'd have fought Wlad, not state they are still developing their guy. Keep grasping.

 

I can't think of any heavyweight in the era of split titles who has ever unified with another heavyweight champ in his first defense, unless they were in the contracted HBO heavyweight championship unification tournament in 1987.

Mike Tyson, Bonecrusher Smith and Tony Tucker were in that title unification tournament. They fought in unifications in their first defenses in 1987. No one outside of it, that I can recall at the moment, ever did.

Usyk, Joshua, Wilder, Fury, Parker, Ruiz, Dubois, Wlad, Vitali, Lennox, Holyfield, Ali, Frazier, Norton, Holmes, Byrd, Rahman, Ruiz, Brewster, Liakhovich, Martin, Maskaev, Peter, Chagaev, Ibragimov, Briggs, Valuev, Haye, Weaver, Tate, L Spinks, M. Spinks, Mercer, Morrison, Hide, Seldon, Bowe, Bruno, McCall, Moorer, Foreman, Thomas, Page, Dokes, Coetzee, Witherspoon, Tubbs, Terrell ... you name them ...

None did except those three guys in 87 at the end of the HBO Unification tournament.

Since Wilder was two years old that year, and didn't have a belt, I think it's comical you're bashing him for doing something no other heavyweight champion outside that tourney did, either.

It's utterly ridiculous.

 

Wilder could have set a precedent. Just too bad no one on his team had confidence in him. Saying he's just a baby and in need of develpment.

 

The fact that you cling to one post fight quote so desperately, when you can find quotes the whole year from everyone involved about it, is uniquely weird.

Whatever.

 

It stands out and says a great deal about their team, whether you like it or not.