Vitali Klitschko (born 19 July 1971) and Wladimir Klitschko (born 25 March 1976), collectively known as The Klitschko brothers are Ukrainian heavyweight boxers.
They reside in Germany, where they are media stars. Both brothers made their professional debut on November 6, 1996 in Hamburg. Since then both have been heavyweight world champions in boxing. They have stated they will never fight each other.
After a series of injuries, Vitali had a career break of almost four years. In his comeback fight in Berlin on October 11, 2008 he defeated Samuel Peter to regain the title of WBC world heavyweight champion. At that time Wladimir was already world heavyweight champion with the WBO, IBF and IBO. That was the first time in history with two brothers world champions at the same time. Vitali retained the WBC Heavyweight Championship in 2011. On July 2, 2011, Wladimir won the WBA Title, which means that the Klitschko brothers hold all of the World Heavyweight Titles collectively.
The Klitschko brothers jointly run the professional boxing promotion companies "K2 Promotions" and "K2 East Promotions", as well as the "Klitschko Brothers Fund", a charity organization. They appear together on German TV shows and commercials, have a common website klitschko.com and support each other's training and fights.
As of the 12th of November 2012, they have a combined professional boxing record of 104 wins (92KO's) and 5 defeats.
Famous quotes containing the word brothers:
“Even brothers should keep careful accounts.”
—Chinese proverb.