WBC orders Bryant Jennings vs. Mike Perez eliminator bout

By Boxing News - 01/31/2014 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: The World Boxing Council has ordered a WBC heavyweight eliminator bout between #4 Bryant Jennings (18-0, 10 KO’s) and unbeaten #5 WBC Mike Perez (20-0-1, 12 KO’s) to pick out a mandatory challenger for the winner of the Chris Arreola vs. Bermane Stiverne fight for the vacant WBC heavyweight title in April. With the WBC ordering Jennings and Perez to fight, it makes me wonder what the WBC has in store for #3 WBC Deontay Wilder.

Why in the heck wasn’t he given a chance to fight in a WBC eliminator bout against Jennings or Perez? After all, Deontay’s ranked above Perez and Jennings, and thereby he should be fighting in an eliminator bout. An eliminator between Perez and Jennings loses all meaning if the guy ranked above them, Deontay, is being skipped over for the fight by the WBC. I mean, that’s kind of a backwards way of doing things, isn’t it? If the idea is for the WBC to select lower ranked fighters and order them to fight in an eliminator bout, then were do the higher ranked talents go?

Deontay might have to focus his attention in going after one of the other heavyweight straps if the WBC is going to bypass him in eliminator bouts. I don’t think it would be an issue if the winner of the Arreola-Stiverne fight were to willingly agree to fight the 6’7″ Deontay, but I have a pretty good idea that neither Arreola or Stiverne will want anything to with the hard-hitting Deontay after their April clash. Deontay is too dangerous for a champion, any champion, to just voluntarily agree to fight him. Nobody agrees to fight someone that has the kind of power that Deontay has, because the chances are too high that Deontay will knock them out.

The problem with Deontay going after the WBO strap is that Tyson Fury is already talking about his proposed June rematch against Dereck Chisora will be a WBO eliminator bout. That means that Deontay won’t get a crack at that strap either, even though he’s ranked higher than #7 WBO Fury at #4, and should be the one that is facing the #2 WBO Chisora in the WBO heavyweight eliminator bout.



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