Former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko is finding out the hard way how difficult it is to be a politician in Ukraine. While attempting to break up a large crowd of protesters on Sunday, Vitali, an opposition leader, was booed and sprayed with a fire extinguisher at point blank range by what appeared to be the police. Vitali had a bullhorn and seemed to have peaceful intent in breaking up the crowd but someone wasn’t feeling it because they quickly nailed Vitali with spray from the extinguisher. Once Vitali was out of range, he had to be held back because he wanted to go after the person that had sprayed him.
The protests came about reportedly due to after the parliament had passed some new laws that didn’t go over well with some of the public.
Vitali, 42, is interested in running for the president of Ukraine in 2015. It’s thought that if he fails to get elected, he’ll return to boxing for one or two more fights before finishing his career. Vitali hasn’t fought since obliterating German fighter Manuel Charr in a 4th round TKO in September 2012. It would be a great pity if the fight with Charr would be Vitali’s last fight of his career, because he’s capable of so much better than this.
Vitali could have take on David Haye in 2013, because Haye was very interested in taking the fight. But instead Vitali choose to stay out of the ring and focus on his political career. If it works out for him with him getting elected as president then it’ll be worth it. There’s so much that he could accomplish if he came back and were to focus on fighting 2-3 times a year against the likes of Bermane Stiverne, Chris Arreola, Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury and Mike Perez. Vitali will likely be still good enough to come back and recapture a world title in 2015 if things don’t work out for him in his political career.
