THE heavyweight division appears to be on a trajectory to becoming glamorous again with the departure of the two boring Ukrainian titanic brothers Vitali and Wladmir Klitschko, who dominated the scene for about a decade largely due to their size.
Both Vitali and Wladmir were always going to pose problems for their smaller and sometimes shorter opponents who they clowned with by keeping them at arm’s length as they vainly tried to wrestle a piece of the titles from either brother.
With Vitali walking away from the sport to concentrate on politics, we saw his World Boxing Council (WBC) title taken by Berman Stiverne who would lose it to American Deontay Wilder, while Wladmir lost four belts- WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO -to fellow giant who, in fact, outsized him in height as well as reach- Tyson Fury.
In a word, Wladmir had more than met his match who could hit him with ease. Of course, the other big heavyweight who shocked Wladmir was late South African banger Corrie Sanders who demolished the Ukrainian in emphatic fashion with a third round KO.
And so, which fights will fans want to watch in 2016 in the heavyweight division?
To attempt an answer entails a cursory look at the top four in this once most lucrative division (Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao in particular  arguably made the welterweight division outstrip the bigger guys’ division with record earnings of $300 plus  apiece this past year in “the fight of the century”).
The top four heavyweights, ranked in no perking order, in my opinion, are Wilder, Commonwealth and British heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, Fury and Stiverne. Wilder and Fury as champions need to be challenged in 2016.
The question boggling my mind is: which match up will be the most compelling among these big fellows?
In order of preference, I propose a fight between Wilder and Joshua as a dream match-up.
The reason? I think I like the styles of the two and they would certainly offer the fans that entertainment value which they missed in Wladmir-Tyson.
Both Joshua and Wilder are undefeated, big knockout specialists, they can box and can fight.
Watching Joshua and Wilder one gets the sense that though they could make a great fight, the potential would most probably be lost as it would turn out to be a technical, tight fight where neither boxer wants to make the first mistake and pay dearly for it.
I watched this sort of fight this past week when ‘Irish’ Andy Lee lost his WBO middleweight title to Billie Joe Saunders on points.
This was a highly technical fight as the two combatants appeared to have too much respect for each other, negating the classic status it had been anticipated to live up to.
The next potentially exciting match-up would by Wilder versus Tyson.
Tyson matches Wilder for size and both would be able to hit the other fairly easily.
Tyson’s mocking antics which he successfully used to get under Wladmir’s skin would be interesting to see how Wilder, a steady come-forward slugger with a sledge hammer, would handle the Briton, not a light puncher himself.
Perhaps what would make this contest more interesting is Wilder’s attitude towards his opponents.
He’s on record as saying he always wants to do damage to his rival’s face. A bit more like the former “Baddest man on the planet” Iron Mike Tyson who always fought to destroy opponents and not just win.
Although Stiverne is a tough nut to crack, against either Joshua, Tyson or the man who beat him already Wilder would be exciting,
I believe the Haitian native is a small heavyweight and he’s always going to struggle to get the heads of the taller opponents.
But hey, Stiverne comes to fight and is no push over despite his physical disadvantages of being short with a shorter reach compared to the other three. Comments: mwale.simon@yahoo.co.uk 0966755574/0953744074