Vitali Klitschko for the past ten years prior to election day; and Klitschko had lived for many years in Ukraine and Germany, where, according to media reports, he has a residence permit. Opinion polls since early 2011 showed that the predicted percentage of votes that Klitschko would gain in the first round of the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election enlarged from 4.8% in December 2011 to 15.1% in February 2013, and an October 2013 Razumkov Centre poll predicted 19.3%. Klitschko was one of the dominant figures of the Euromaidan protests. During these protests, he retired from boxing. He confirmed on 28 February 2014
Vitali Klitschko technical knockout. Negotiations for a 6 December rematch began. After negotiations collapsed, Vitali defeated Kirk Johnson in a WBC Eliminator bout on 6 December date, setting up a mandatory rematch with Lewis. In January 2004, the WBC announced that it would strip Lewis of the belt if he let pass a 15 March deadline to sign for a rematch with Vitali. Shortly thereafter, Lewis announced his retirement and vacated the title. For years after this fight, Klitschko would still occasionally call out Lewis, despite the fact that Lewis has been retired since early 2004, for a rematch. Around this time