By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated heavyweight Deontay Wilder (29-0, 29 KO’s) feels he’s ready to face IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko right now and he thinks he has a good chance of beating him due to his speed, power and athleticism. Deontay says he learned a lot about Wladimir’s fighting style during his time as his sparring partner last year, and he learned from that experience how to beat the 6’6″ Ukrainian fighter.
The 6’7″ Deontay thinks that Wladimir will have problems with him because he’ll be fighting someone at the eye level as him, and he won’t be able to keep him at bay by using his jab that way he does against his shorter opponents. In fact, Deontay has a three inch reach advantage and a one inch height advantage over Wladimir. That would be a definite shocker for Wladimir to be facing someone with a longer reach, better speed and better power than himself.
Wladimir wouldn’t be able to crab Deontay with clinches as much as he does against his shorter opponents because Deontay fights on the outside and he won’t need to get real close in order to throw his shots. Wladimir would would only have a chance to grab Deontay in a clinch after he’s thrown one of his big power right hand shots, and by then it might be way way too late to grab.
What could be the downfall for Wladimir is that Deontay is an excellent inside fighter on the level of someone like Lennox Lewis. I mean, he’s able to generate huge power in close, even when being held by his opponents. If you watch Deontay’s fight against the 6’7″ Kelvin Price last December, you’ll notice that Price grabbed Deontay in a clinch while the two of them were near the ropes.
Deontay then exploded two with several clubbing right hands to the side of Price’s head causing his feet to almost go out from under him. I’ve never seen a heavyweight generate the kind of power that Deontay did with those three short punches.
I’ve seen Lewis throw single uppercuts with amazing power while in close, but it was always one shot at a time and they never thrown in rapid fashion the way that Deontay throws his. The punches that Deontay landed against Price were like three consecutive Lewis uppercuts within just a little over a second. Price was staggering after Deontay nailed him with those shots. Deontay then finished him with an overhand right to the head.
Deontay told the Atlantic Weekly “I have been in there with him [Wladimir], and I already know what to expect…If the shorter guy gets in, he can hold onto them…thing is no one knows that I have a great inside game that people have never seen. I have sparred with him and I know how to beat him.”
Wladimir would be in a real tough situation against Deontay because a lot of things that he’s learned from in his years with his late trainer Emanuel Steward, they wouldn’t work against Deontay. If Wladimir clinched Deontay, he’d get brained with clubbing right hands to the side of the head. Wladimir wouldn’t be able to lean on Deontay because he’s bigger than he is and he’d nail him with shots while Wladimir is trying to hold him. The only way that Wladimir could beat Deontay is in a traditional stand up fight where he tries to bomb him out from the outside with right hands and left hooks. If Wladimir falls into one of his clinches, he’ll get finished quickly by Deontay just like he was in his loss to Corrie Sanders in 2003.
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