Don’t hold your breath over the Tyson Fury-Wladimir Klitschko rematch you, we, everyone wants to see. The return fight has dragged on and on, to a tiresome degree, and now, in speaking with RingTV.com, Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions said yesterday the fight may not take place until the fall (Autumn as we call it in the UK). As fans know, it was back in November, getting on for five months ago, when Fury defeated Klitschko in an upset, and neither fighter has had the chance to either reverse or repeat the result since.
Klitschko is reportedly in heavy training, while Fury – who by his own admission when speaking recently with IFilm TV, has been “eating, drinking and having sex” – is just heavy. Fury, perhaps joking, maybe not, told IFilm that he is currently 26-stone, before correcting himself and saying he is 24-stone (342-pounds). Fury is a big man at a listed 6’9” but the added weight he may or may not be carrying could prove to be a problem; especially if the fight is pushed back to August or September time.
Loeffler says the delay is nothing to do with either fighter, but due to finding a suitable venue and arranging all the TV rights.
“I’m guessing it would be some time in the summer or in the fall whenever they can because there are a lot of moving parts with that because of the location, with the UK pay-per-view, German TV, HBO, everything has to line up,” Loeffler told RingTV.com yesterday. “It’s one of those things that have to be fully agreed to by both sides what is the best venue, the best date. Wladimir certainly wants to get his titles back and Tyson Fury has no fear of Wladimir.”
Things often move slowly in the heavyweight division (look at the talented and dangerous Luis Ortiz of Cuba, who seemingly cannot get a meaningful fight even though he holds a version of a major title) but at this rate, Fury will have had over eight or nine months as champion whilst being idle. Let’s hope the fight does actually take place this year. Imagine if, once a date, venue and everything else was worked out, one of the fighters was to suffer an injury!
Back when he shocked Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion in 1964, Muhammad Ali endured 15-months of inactivity between winning the crown and making his first defence. Ali beat Liston in February of 1964 but the rematch didn’t come about until May of the following year, when an earlier date for the return fell though because Ali was rushed into hospital to treat a hernia.
Let’s all hope there is not this amount of time between Fury-Klitschko fights one and two.