The chance of former heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko making a stunning return to the ring is still very much a thing. We heard, a few weeks back, prior to the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, that Wladimir was seriously thinking about returning to the ring. Then, “Dr. Steelhammer” said he hoped Usyk, his countryman, would win the return with Fury and in so doing “keep me in retirement.”
Klitschko said he had zero interest in fighting Usyk. But Usyk did beat Fury a second time (“retiring” Fury in the process), so plenty of us felt Klitschko’s comeback plans, such as they actually were, had gone away. But now, in a news story over at Ring Magazine’s website, we are told that 48 year old Wladimir is “all but completely committed to returning to the ring for a high-profile fight at some point in 2025.”
As the story goes on to say, there is no word yet on just who Klitschko might fight in what would be a quite astonishing ring return (Wladimir has of course not fought since April of 2017, this fight being his thrilling but losing fight with Anthony Joshua). It seems we can still rule out Usyk as a potential target for a returning Klitschko, but the word is the aim of the comeback would be to make history by breaking George Foreman’s record as the oldest heavyweight champion ever. Maybe Wladimir will try and get a fight with the winner of the Daniel Dubois-Joe Parker fight, this to contest the IBF belt later on this month?
Who knows? But the words “all but completely committed to returning to the ring for a high-profile fight at some point in 2025” are pretty strong. It would be interesting to know how the folks at Ring learned of this news, but we do know that Saudi money-man Turki Alalshikh is very much interested in seeing Wladimir make a comeback. Maybe the two have had talks and Wladimir is now determined indeed to come back?
We will have to see how things develop. If they actually develop at all.
Would YOU like to see Klitschko, 64-5(53) and 49 years of age in March, return to the ring?
