There is a school of thought that says a defeat can be just as good as a victory, providing you learn lessons from said defeat and implement them to go on to taste victory again.
This school exists only in the realm of the hypothetical, and may only have one student, Wladimir Klitschko.
In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday, the Ukrainian boxer said he was happy he lost his heavyweight titles to Tyson Fury last December after a decade of dominance in the sport’s once marque division.
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“Losing feels good,” Klitschko, 40, said. “I’m glad that my hand was not raised that night.
“Failure is not an option unless it is the only way to get better, and I had to get better. I needed a push to get better and I got it. I feel it.”
The two rivals will renew hostilities in Manchester on July 9 when Fury defends the WBA and WBO heavyweight belts — he also won the IBF’s version before being forced to vacate that title after agreeing to this rematch — won so unanimously in Dusseldorf against Klitschko at the end of last year.
Despite the obvious contradiction, Klitschko is correct in his analysis that the setback could prove a blessing in disguise.
As with any rematch, the loser will need to correct his mistakes of the first encounter if they are to emerge victorious. Wladimir added that, although he was in great shape physically for their first fight, mentally, he wasn’t.
“After a while, you get used to defending and not conquering the man in front of you. It will be different on 9 July,” he said. “If you want to destroy a person, give him five years of success. I had no failures for 11 and a half years.
“After a while it’s OK to make a mistake and I made a mistake against Fury. I want to make that clear in my revenge and it is what I’m looking forward to.”
Klitschko has always struggled against taller fighters (Klitschko is 1.98m, Fury a gargantuan 2.06m), but it is hard to imagine the Briton enjoying the same success behind the jab he did in Germany. Although Klitschko loves to fight on the outside, a matter of adjusting distance and radar, nullifying the Briton’s superior reach, should allow him to get inside and test Fury’s suspect chin.
For too long Wladimir and his brother, Vitali, had dominated a division devoid of world-class opponents. Too often the brothers were accused of handpicking opponents they knew would pose few problems.
That does a disservice, though, not only to the Klitschkos but also to the opponents brave enough to lace up to take on two of the most underrated technicians of any era.
We need only cast our mind back to last month and the terrifying scenes of Nick Blackwell being carried from the ring on a stretcher before being induced into a coma following 10 brutal rounds with Chris Eubank Jr to be reminded of the perils each boxer faces each time he steps into the ring. Thankfully, Blackwell is expected to make a full recovery, although he will never fight again.
Wladimir can only beat what’s in front of him, which he did 22 times straight before dropping the titles to Fury, and has done in 64 of his 68 professional fights, with 53 of them by way of knockout.
And he will improve that record to 65 wins. Although Fury deserved to win the first fight, he did so by virtue of not being the worst boxer in the ring that night. Come July 9, Klitschko will show that his last defeat could prove to be a victory after all.
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