Joshua vs. Klitschko breaks box office records with 80K tickets sold

By BoxingNews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans in the UK have been scooping up tickets for the Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko fight left and right for their April 29 match on Sky Box Office PPV at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

As of Monday, a mess of tickets have been sold. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is looking to expand the 80,000 limit to 85,000 by having more tickets released. Hopefully, this doesn’t create a hazard by having too many people in the stadium. The fans need to be able to around a bit without feeling like a bunch of sardines.

All total, over 80,000 tickets have been purchased for the fight. That’s a lot of tickets for a fight that figures to be one-sided and non-competitive. The 80K tickets sold beats the three-year record of 77,000 tickets sold for the Carl Froch vs. George Groves rematch.

What a mismatch that fight turned out to be. Instead of Froch choosing to face an experienced fighter like Andre Ward for a rematch, he chose Groves, who had never beaten anyone good in his career, and was coming off of a knockout loss to Froch. I can’t believe the rematch sold that many tickets, because it seemed like such a nothing fight.

Joshua and Wladimir will scrap for the vacant WBA heavyweight that was recently abandoned by Tyson Fury.

Hearn said this to skysports.com about the ticket sales:

“The demand for tickets for Joshua vs Klitschko is phenomenal – this is unquestionably the biggest fight in British boxing history and we would have sold out Wembley twice over,” said Hearn. “We have put a request in to Brent Council, the Mayor’s office and TFL to increase the capacity by a further 5,000 tickets. We are confident of a positive answer and we will release further news shortly. Roll on April 29!”

Having Wembley Stadium fitted at a full capability of 80,000 fans sounds good to me. Packing the stadium with even more fans might take away from the atmosphere. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve been in stadiums with that many people and it was a real nightmare to try and move around.

For the boxing fans that still remember how old and feeble the 40-year-old Klitschko looked the last time he fought two years ago in 2015, they don’t see him as having any chance of beating Joshua on April 29. These fans see Klitschko as just a scalp for the 27-year-old Joshua to add to his collection. It’s interesting that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn chose not to match him against Wladimir when he was still in his prime.

Instead, the fight didn’t take place until Wladimir was beaten by Tyson Fury. I wonder if this is going to become the norm for the way that Hearn matches Joshua during his career. Thus far, he still hasn’t matched him against Luis Ortiz. I hope that Hearn doesn’t have Joshua ducking opponents when he gets into his late 30s and early 40s. That would be a pity if Joshua was steered around the best as he ages.

You’ve got to at least respect Wladimir for wanting to fight a top guy at this late stage in his career. I mean, I don’t see Wladimir winning against Joshua, but you’ve got still respect the guy. I can’t say that Wladimir deserves the fight. Wladimir’s qualifications for him getting a title shot are horrible. He lost his last fight and he hasn’t fought in 2 years. Heck, Joshua might as well be fighting 43-year-old Fres Oquendo, who hasn’t fought since 2014. Oquendo will so be fighting Shannon Briggs for the vacant WBA heavyweight title. It’s only in boxing that you see this kind of matches. If this were the NFL, you couldn’t go to the Super Bowl if you lost your last game and hadn’t played since 2015. Wladimir should have at least taken a tune-up or two against a top contender to earn the title shot.