Now the winner of this fight will have a mandatory in Tony Thompson and then the Chambers-Povetkin winner. Do you think the winner of this fight will manage to honour both mandatories or be suspended of one of the belts?
Good question. The winner probably won't be able to hold on to both belts for too long. Assuming Klitschko is the winner, and he can't take both fights, or the opportunity for a more important fight comes along, I'd forget about Thompson and fight Chambers-Povetkin winner. This way he holds onto the belt he's defended the longest, likely fights Povetkin, thought to be the best of the new crop of heavies.
Klitschko might be able to pull of a summer defense against Thompson and a late fall defense against Chambers/Povetkin winner. This still means there´d be a long time to wait to get another unification fight. I don´t really see why Povetkin would want to take his shot if he beats Chambers. He should be able to get a shot at some other champion within a reasonable time or just beat more contenders before fighting Wlad. That way he´d have a better chance winning and the fight would make more money, cause Povetkin would be more famous.
Yeah it won´t be all that bad for Klitschko. He´d gain more from a superfight with a more experienced and established Povetkin down the line though, as opposed to fighting him this year. Oh well they could always rematch later though.
Yes, usually the WBA,WBC,IBF combintation is what is considered the undisputed championship at any weight, but that is kind of changing now, as the WBO is becoming more even with the other three. For a while now a lot of the lower weight WBO belts have had a lot of prestige. It´s only recently the WBO heavyeight belt has started to be on level with the other three. I think it really happened with the Klitschkos and then Brewster holding it. I think now it depends more on the fighter holding the belt than the alpahbet letters on it.
I see Wlad dropping the WBO, I think if held on to both the IBF and the WBO it might mess up future fight plans for him. I hope Wlad does dump the WBO, I would hate to see him fight Thompson, that would be a boring fight to say the least.
It s more of a case of the other abc s lowering their standards to the wbo s level than anything positive on the wbo s part! It doesnt really matter if he holds onto them though. When lewis unified nearly all the belts were stripped instantaneously but everybody recognized him as the champ. the same would happen here.
If he beats Thompson and Povetkin, that would be damn impressive. Hopefully the sanctioning bodies will have mercy.
I think Wlad vs Thompson would be a boring fight with a spectacular end. Similar to Wlad/Austin, Wlad/Brock, feeling out, jabbing establishing range, then KOTFO.
Well if Wlad would drop the IBF and not the WBO, there could be an interesting situation with Povetkin picking up the IBF strap, building to a megafight with Klitschko down the line. :happy
