By Scott Gilfoid: After destroying Malik Scott (36-2-1, 13 KO’s) in an impressive 1st round knockout last night in their WBC heavyweight eliminator bout, Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s) is ready to fight the winner of the May 10th fight between Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne for the WBC heavyweight title later on this year. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is already talking about where to stage the Deontay vs. Arreola or Stiverne fight, and he’s thinking about putting the fight in Los Angeles at the The Forum.
As for who the 6’7″ Deontay will be facing, he doesn’t really have a preference between the two fighters. In fact, Deontay says he’d feel comfortable if they tossed both Stiverne and Arreola in the ring at the same time for him to knockout without his big power shots one at a time.
“For me, it doesn’t matter,” Deontay said when asked about his preference between Arreola or Stiverne for his next fight. “I could fight both Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne at the same time.”
Deontay isn’t just kidding. With his one-punch KO power and his huge size, he would be trouble for either one of those guys. Arreola is listed at 6’4″, but he’s pretty much just another 6’2″ fighter and is around the same height at Stiverne. These are medium sized heavyweights with good power, but limited reach and too much weight. All that extra weight that they’re carrying around would make them slow and immobile against a fighter like Deontay, and it would be an easy KO for him unless they were able to take his huge shots for 12 rounds. I don’t think they could.
A win over Stiverne or Arreola will set Deontay up for a possible unification bout against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. Wladimir has to take care of his mandatory defenses against Alex Leapai and Kubrat Pulev, but once he gets those guys out of the way, he’ll be free to face Deontay next year unless Wladimir chooses not to face him. Deontay will have time to make an optional title defense against someone like Tyson Fury or Dereck Chisora while he waits for Wladimir to get finished up with his mandatory defendes.
Stiverne easily beat Arreola last year in their fight last April, so I expect him to do the same thing in the rematch. Arreola doesn’t have the boxing skills to beat Stiverne, and we’re just going to see a repeat.
Deontay has called out Arreola in the past, but he’s had no luck in trying to get him to accept a fight with him. But now he’s a got a decent chance to face Arreola if he can get past Stiverne in May. That’s a big if because as bad as Arreola looked in his previous fight with Stiverne, I don’t see Arreola ever being able to beat Stiverne no matter how many times the two guys end up facing each other. Stiverne isn’t anything special, but he’s smart enough to fight in a disciplined manner by using his jab against Arreola. Vitali Klitschko and Tomasz Adamak already showed that all you need to do to beat Arreola is to jab him.
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