The Beltline: Would the chronically cautious Wladimir Klitschko really risk returning to the ring?

They used to say the problem with Wladimir Klitschko was that he knew too much. He thought too much, he felt too much, and after suffering his first loss he expected the worst every time he set foot in a ring. 

His decade-long dominance, in fact, could perhaps be attributed to and explained by this pessimism, for once he realised what it was to lose, and be hurt, Klitschko’s aim was to prevent feeling that way ever again. This fear, as it would, naturally changed him. It made him cautious – sometimes overly – and it also made the Ukrainian a master at controlling distance, his opponent, and his own fate. He fought to not lose rather than to win. Yet he also made 18 consecutive defences of the world heavyweight title. 

Seven-and-a-half years since his last fight, we now recall Klitschko’s reign with a fondness and admiration he likely didn’t feel from us during the construction of it. Back then, when dominance and long reigns meant safety and predictability, we failed to appreciate the quality of Wladimir Klitschko – nor for that matter his brother, Vitali – and we failed to appreciate what it was to have clear a number one in the heavyweight division. Now, of course, they take turns. They all have a go. If they aren’t playing pass the parcel with heavyweight belts, they are sitting out the ring for extended periods, flunking drug tests, boxing mixed martial artists, or showing interest only in fights in the Middle East.

Klitschko, for all his faults, was an active champion and a clear target. He held as many belts at one time as he could feasibly manage without getting stripped of one and he fought as many contenders as his body and schedule would allow. He also got better with age and remains one of the finest examples of a fighter who not only learned from an early setback but reinvented themselves as a result. In Klitschko’s case, the reckless puncher of old, tamed for the first time against Ross Puritty, made way for a more measured, controlled heavyweight once he discovered there were opponents who could (a) take what he threw at them and (b) were ready to throw back. His full metamorphosis was then realised under the tutelage of Emanuel Steward and saw Klitschko become boxing’s ultimate control freak; a well-oiled machine programmed to jab, hold, put his weight on an opponent, and remind them for every second of every round that he was both bigger than them and in control of them. His right crosses and left hooks were soon collector’s items, thrown so rarely that the mere anticipation was enough to have most challengers cower and self-destruct. He punched when he wanted to punch. He won exactly how he wanted to win. 

This overhaul did wonders for Klitschko’s longevity, of course, but it served only to alienate fans whose love language is violence. In Klitschko, they saw not a man in control but a man scared, with many of the belief that he should use his frame and considerable size advantages to stamp his authority on a contest, not hide behind. It should be a weapon, they felt, not a suit of armour. 

Klitschko, though, never strayed nor wavered. If anything, the more experiences he accumulated in the ring, the more cautious he became and the keener he was to keep himself out of harm’s way and sniff out danger before it arrived. His dream, it seemed, was to create the perfect fight – that is, the one fight in which he did all the punching and holding while the other fighter, his opponent, did no more than acquiesce and obey.

On occasion you could see Klitschko thinking about punches – his own, his opponent’s – and then second-guessing whether it would be wise to make a certain move at a certain time. Inevitably, and frustratingly, he often chose inaction. He thought when he should have been fighting and he experienced a kind of analysis paralysis which in turn caused irritation on the part of those watching him. 

In boxing, a sport of fine margins and violent bursts of action, he remained an anomaly throughout his career. If fools rushed in, Klitschko took his time, deliberated. He tiptoed his way to violence rather than jumped in with both feet and he seemingly lacked the ignorance 99.9 per cent of boxers possess and need in order to get them to the ring on fight night. He boasted the build of a boxer, of that there is no doubt, yet his mind, at times, appeared better suited to more cerebral pastimes.

“There are two things that get in the way of action,” wrote Fernando Pessoa in The Book of Disquiet, “– sensitivity and analytical thought, which is, after all, nothing more than thought plus sensitivity.

“However hard his life may be, the ordinary man does at least have the pleasure of not thinking,” he added. “Living life as it comes, externally, like a cat or a dog – that is what most men do, and that is how you should live if you want to be as contented as a cat or a dog.

“To think is to destroy.” 

Wladimir Klitschko would not destroy opponents with his thinking, but rather his own capacity to destroy. This became increasingly evident as his career progressed, which is why his final fight, against Anthony Joshua in April 2017, was such a perfect note on which to go out. After all, it was in that fight that Klitschko had to battle back from adversity, stand toe to toe, and try to outlast a much younger opponent whose physical gifts were now the envy of a man who was once the envy of so many others. That he didn’t fold, or shrink, or think too much, spoke volumes. Some went so far as to say it was the most exciting fight of his career. Some even said it was one of Klitschko’s best performances. 

Almost eight years later, there is now talk of a Klitschko return, the idea of which is not only sad, as all comebacks are, but entirely at odds with both his personality and his career. At 48 years of age, any ring return in 2025 would require Klitschko taking the kind of risks he was averse to taking during his prime, and doing so at an age when punches received and defeats suffered mean something different than they did before. It would be reckless, in other words, and potentially dangerous. It would go against everything Klitschko stood for and once represented: control, perfection, safety. 

With his loose ends already tied up, and with that Joshua defeat the perfect swansong, it would be hard, for once, to understand the thought process of Wladimir Klitschko ahead of a return. Should it happen, any comeback would appear a rash decision, the likes of which he does not do, rather than one he has deliberated over for some time. It would also be inspired wholly by the fact that one of the few things missing from his illustrious career is a grotesque payday in Riyadh. It would, in the final analysis, feel both desperate and very un-Klitschko.