{"id":781056,"date":"2026-07-05T18:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T18:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781056\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T18:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T18:11:11","slug":"wladimir-klitschko-could-land-shock-heavyweight-title-fight-against-new-champion-at-50-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781056\/","title":{"rendered":"Wladimir Klitschko could land shock heavyweight title fight against new champion at 50 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk of a return to the ring for former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has resurfaced after the Ukrainian was pictured alongside promoter Alex Krassyuk.<\/p>\n

Klitschko is widely regarded as one of the greatest heavyweights of the modern era. The Ukrainian reigned over boxing\u2019s glamour division throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s<\/a>, making 18 successful world title defences during his second reign before hanging up the gloves after losses to Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. He retired with a professional record of 64 wins, 53 by knockout, and five defeats.<\/p>\n

The photograph with Krassyuk \u2013 captioned \u201csomething big is coming\u201d \u2013 has inevitably reignited speculation over Klitschko\u2019s future, with the 50-year-old repeatedly linked to a comeback since retiring in 2017.<\/p>\n

Should he do so, he has made it clear that George Foreman\u2019s record as the oldest heavyweight champion in history would be the target, and countryman Oleksandr Usyk vacating his three world titles has made that more realistic.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Playbook Boxing<\/a>, Spencer Brown, manager of new WBC champion Agit Kabayel, suggested a fight between the pair would be \u2018historic\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are a couple of fights out there for Klitschko. I think number one would be Agit Kabayel in Germany. Could you imagine that? Fighting for a WBC world title, which he held for a long time? It would be a historical fight and it would be huge. You wouldn\u2019t have a stadium big enough to fill that in Germany \u2026 That would be the oldest fighter ever to try and regain his title, wouldn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Having been upgraded to full WBC champion last month after Usyk vacated the belt, Kabayel is currently looking to secure his first voluntary defence, with Jarrell Miller a potential challenger.<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the WBC\u2019s history of granting former champions with \u2018legendary status\u2019 comeback title shots despite not being actively ranked \u2013 Manny Pacquiao the most recent example \u2013 the Ukrainian may well be granted the opportunity if he pursues it.<\/p>\n

Brown also mentioned another of his fighters, Tyson Fury, as a possible opponent should Klitschko decide to return, reigniting their 2015 rivalry and delivering on a rematch that never happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talk of a return to the ring for former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has resurfaced after the Ukrainian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-781056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}