By Scott Gilfoid: American heavyweight Deontay Wilder (29-0, 29 KO’s) will be looking to bag his 30th knockout tonight against the 34-year-old 6’6″ Nicolai Firtha (21-10-1, 8 KO’s) on Showtime’s triple-header at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Deontay’s fight will be positioned ahead of the main event between Bernard Hopkins and Karo Murat and the co-feature matching WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin vs. Gabriel Rosado.
In the future you’ll likely see Deontay headlining his own fight cards once he captures a world title in beating one of the Klitchkos. Once Deontay’s record is up to 50-0, he’s going to be incredibly popular in the United States. It should take Deontay about three more years before he’s at the the 50-0 mark with his career unless he slows down in his fights.
Firtha is only the second fighter on the 6’7″ Deontay’s resume that will be able to look him in the eyes more or less. Last year, Deontay stopped the 6’7″ Kelvin Price in three rounds. Deontay had no problems adjusting to Price’s height and reach. The only problem that Deontay had in that fight was dealing with Price’s cautiousness.
Thankfully, he won’t have to worry about that tonight because Firtha comes to fight and he won’t be someone that Deontay will have to come looking for. Firtha knows that he won’t be able to escape Deontay’s long reach, so he’s going to come straight into the teeth of Deontay’s offense and hope for the best. I like that in Firtha because he’s old enough to know that it won’t help him if he chooses to run from the long-armed and agile-bodied Deontay.
It would be just putting off the inevitable if Firtha tries to get away from Deontay. Firtha does have very good and I rate his punching power as one of the hardest in the division. I mean, he’s not in the class of Wilder but I definitely put him near the likes of David Price.
I see Firtha as a better puncher than that the majority of the top contenders in the division right now. Firtha’s problem isn’t his power. It’s his ability to take punishment, and tonight he’s going to be taking a lot of hard shots. If Firtha had the chin to go the distance, he’d be a very good fighter. But he would still lose to Deontay because of all the punishment that he’d have to absorb for 10 rounds.
Deontay was pretty loose at the weigh-in on Friday. While being weighed-in, Deontay was holding and eating out of a large box of strawberry shortcake. He even refused to let someone hold it during the weigh-in, so you’ve got to take off at least a pound from his 224 lb. weigh-in weight and attribute it to the large box of strawberry shortcake.
Deontay has been on a red-hot tear as of late kin stopping his last two opponents Audley Harrison and Sergiy Liakhovich in the 1st round. Despite of those fighters trying hard to keep away from Deontay, he was still able to close the distance and knock them out with huge right hands. I see the same thing happening tonight and I’d be very surprised if Firtha makes it out of the 1st round.
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