Wladimir Klitschko
Wladimir Klitschko
Wladimir Klitschkois a Ukrainian professional boxer. He is a former world heavyweight champion of four sanctioning bodies, having held the titles of the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO, in addition to holding the lineal championship, and being recognized by The Ring magazine as its world heavyweight champion. A highly strategic boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time, and is also thought to be among the hardest punching knockout artists in the history...
NationalityUkrainian
ProfessionBoxer
Date of Birth25 March 1976
CitySemey, Kazakhstan
CountryUkraine
There is no money in this world that will make us fight.
I run, but boxing conditioning is different, so you have to get used to running in the ring. Boxing movements are very different. Swimming is one of the best because every single muscle is working. I swim a lot. I train very hard at things that mimic boxing. I have to do mostly sport-specific training, such as lots of sparring.
I'm playing right now a role, and the role is called the 'Heavyweight Champion of the World.' And it takes all of the time. And I love this role, and it takes a lot of attention for me for the sport, and I just don't want to lose the title, so that's why I have to stay focused and not become an actor.
I never fought in my life outside of a ring.
This guy [Tyson Fury] really wants to prove himself in the ring and confirm what he keeps telling everyone, that he's the best in the world.
It is incredibly difficult to adjust to such a little fighter. Mormeck is similar to Mike Tyson, he is just a little still faster.
All the champions - you go and ask Mike Tyson or Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Lennox Lewis and myself included, and I'm sorry for putting myself in line with all the other great names - but the champion's attitude is it doesn't matter who is in front of me, I am going to conquer this person and win the fight and knock the person out.
I have a Ph.D. in philosophy and sports science. At 14, I went through this really tough Soviet training system. A lot of my roommates got psychologically broken or physically injured. Either you came through, or you were out. I made my Ph.D. work in the field of young athletes aged 14-19 because at this age any human is changing.
All of my fights are planned. I study my opponents from A to Z. How he walks, how he looks, how he speaks, gestures of the human body, which is a certain language that provides you lots of information if you have the ability to read it.
The first thing I learned in boxing is to not get hit. That's the art of boxing. Execute your opponent without getting hit. In sports school, we were putting our hands behind our backs and having to defend ourselves with our shoulders, by rolling, by moving round the ring, moving out feet.
Politics is comparable to boxing. The only thing is that in politics there are basically no rules. In boxing, you can get a black eye, but in politics you can get poison in your food or a bullet in the head. It's definitely rougher and tougher than other sports.
In Soviet times, the border was closed, so we couldn't get out of the country, and I had been reading Robinson Crusoe. I wanted to see the ocean, I wanted to see boats, I wanted to see black people, because we didn't have that in the Soviet Union. I was all excited by that stuff.
I respect the IBF obligation to fight Povetkin, but I would like the exception to fight David Haye. That is the only title the Klitschkos don't have. We have them all except the WBA, which is why Haye is such an interesting cookie for me to eat.
I know he's retired, but I'm a big fan of Shaquille O'Neal, his game and his personality. I have a pair of his shoes in my office. You see the size of his shoe and think, 'This is not real, this couldn't belong to a human being.' But he is human!