Wladimir Klitschko – Tyson Fury. Alexander Belenky’s prediction

We have been waiting too long for the next Klitchko fight, and now we have it. What can you say about his opponent – Tyson Fury? Is he indeed a tough challenger?

I think that Fury has more chances to win than any other of the last Klitchko’s opponents. Fury is tall. He is the one of two or three Klitchko’s opponents who are taller than the Ukrainian – 206 cm. Fury is a good and heavy boxer and he is pretty much motivated. All the bridges are burnt for him. He is to make or break, try his best and hold the ground. That’s why he is dangerous – he can’t step back now. This is not the situation when he could fight, make some good punches, lose but look sharp. He himself made all the fans waiting for him to win.

Why Fury’s promoters couldn’t get this fight to the Great Britain? This is a box-office event and they could find the ways.

There was a tender and Klitchko’s bid has won. This is the point.

But why didn’t the British boxer do anything to outbargain it?

I think that Fury’s promoters were not so sure that he could win. That’s why they found no sense in winning it at any costs.

So, do they understand that they could fail? There was a possibility to make up a big football stadium for this fight.

Right, it could have been a stadium. Only fights at big stadiums can bring you a profit compared to TV revenues. The best bet is on TV broadcasting. But British TV would have given the same money regardless of the place of the fight. This was the argument.

Does the fight place matter in this case?

No it doesn’t. There will be a crazy crowd of British fans in Germany. I saw this on the Klitschko – Haye fight. There was an absolutely mad-brained British fans army. That fight was held on a football stadium in Hamburg. I don’t know how many British people were there, may be 10-15 percent of all crowd. But they yelled more loud that the rest 85 percent of Germans. That was a fabulous crew. I can still hear that crazy chants. But I must say that all the British fans are very hard-edged with their sportsmen. They can’t excuse somebody for a lack of courage. When they thought that Haye feel punked out, they booed him. His nickname is Hayemaker, so they called him Gaymaker. That’s so British. So Fury won’t feel lonely. This audience can make a great support. They are not violent although some of them look as if they were boxing, too. But they made no offence, just bawled their heads off. I must admit that Fury has the Irish roots, he is from Irish gypsies – just like in a Guy Ritchie’s movie, Snatched. So can you imagine the atmosphere of the upcoming fight?

Fury’s record is ideal – 24 wins. But as we can see, he hasn’t had any really serious opponents. We can mark a win over Dereck Chisora, a good boxer but with no punch.

That’s right. Chisora is the only big win. There was a fight against Steve Cunningham who knocked down Fury but then got a KO. But Cunningham fought in a cruiserweight category in the past. We can say that Fury was safeguarded for the Klitchko fight. I appreciate his chances to win like 10-20 percent. This can be a random punch or an injury of Klitchko. Such casual incidents can happen in boxing.

Did Klitschko’s injury really have place? Or he just wanted to better prepare for the fight?

I’ll bet any money there was an injury. I’m sure the match was moved not on purpose. I came to Usik’s fight this August in Kiev. And his brother Vitali was really concerned that Wladimir’s training was too intensified. He was worried that Wladimir is 39, not 20 anymore. Wladimir was drubbing his sparring partners. They had to change them every fortnight. That calf injury could have happened any time and was because of Wladimir’s big will to fight.

Is Fury the most dangerous opponent for Klitschko? Or are there any other boxers?

I would say Wilder is more dangerous despite he showed some poor performance in the last fight. I think good about Jennings, who has lost to Wladimir. One could assume he’s not worse than Fury and Wilder. He’s not a thrasher, but still a good boxer.

How many more fights will Wladimir have, according to you?

Two or three at most, I suppose.

What about betting on this particular fight? What would you recommend?

I have no doubts Wladimir would win. Maybe by a KO in later rounds. Or by a decision. But I think a knockout is more probable. I recommend betting on a KO in a gap between rounds 7 and 12.