By Scott Gilfoid: While his important fight against Malik Scott (36-1-1, 13 KO’s) is still two months away, unbeaten heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) is already discussing the March 15th match-up with him scheduled at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The 6’7″ Deontay has already sparred with Malik in the past in getting IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko ready for one of his important fights against Mariusz Wach.
Deontay got a feel for Scott’s power, and he came away impressed with his skills, but also feeling like he had the edge in the power and hand speed department,. Deontay freely admits that Malik had more skills than him, but he feels that his advantages in speed and power more than offset Malik’s sills advantage.
“I was stronger than him, had more power and had a much stronger punch,” Deontay said to RingTV. “I would say that I’m quicker than he is, too, and I’m definitely more athletic than he is. But he definitely has more skills. But everybody knows that what kills skills is will. I have a whole lot of that…In my eyes, Malik still is undefeated.”
I’m in full agreement with Deontay with his belief that Malik should still be an unbeaten fighter. Malik was hit with a rabbit punch in a fight he was winning against Dereck Chisora last year in June in London, UK. When Malik got up from the knockdown at the count of 9, the referee halted the fight anyway despite the fact that Malik had beaten the count. There were two wrongs there. The first one was the referee didn’t rule that it was a punch to the back of the head of Malik that knocked him down. The second wrong as the referee halted the count at the count of 9 instead of the count of 10. It looked like to me that the referee had guessed that Malik wouldn’t get up by the count of 10.
As good a fighter Malik is, I just can’t see him making it past the 2nd round against Deontay. This fight could be over by the 1st round unless Malik moves a lot to keep out of the way of Deontay’s thunderous right hand. Believe me, if Malik tries to trade with Deontay like he was doing against the sloppy-punching Chisora, the fight will end in the 1st round. Deontay will nail Malik with a hammering right hand to the head and that’ll send him down for the full counter. There won’t be any controversy about the knockout because Deontay will leave no doubts in anyone’s mind about who the better fighter is.
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