By Scott Gilfoid: After a month of sounding indecisive about who he plans on fighting next, WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KO’s) is now saying that he wants to defend his newly won title against #1 WBC mandatory challenger Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s), in presumably his first defense of his title.
The World Boxing Council had previously said that Deontay should be the first defense for Stiverne, but Stiverne still seemed undecided if he would take that fight until now.
“But for me, it’s not about the money,” Stiverne said to the Las Vegas Review Journal. “I want Wilder. He can talk all the trash he wants, but that’s all it is — trash. And we all know where trash belongs.”
This is good news, because a fight between Deontay and Stiverne should be an exciting one for as long as it lasts due to the power that both fighters bring to the table. Deontay recently beat a very good fighter in Malik Scott in knocking him out with three blows to the head in stopping him in the 1st round last March in their WBC heavyweight eliminator match. Stiverne recently stopped Chris Arreola in the 6th round last May in a pointless rematch.
The two fighters had already fought in April of 2013 with Stiverne giving Arreola a severe beat down in shattering his nose in a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision win. Why the WBC had Stiverne and Arreola fight a second time is unclear. They arguably should have skipped that fight and went straight to the Deontay vs. Stiverne fight to spare boxing fans a second one-sided fight between them.
Deontay, 6’7”, has been knocking most of his opponents in the 1st round since he turned pro in 2008. Of his 31 fights, 18 of them have ended in 1st round knockouts. Deontay takes some flak for the weak opposition he’s faced, but he’s done an incredible job even against the good opposition he’s been in with. His power is very real, as we’ve seen with his 1st round knockout victories over Audley Harrison, Sergey Liakovich, and Malik Scott. Those are decent quality fighters, yet Deontay knocked them all out in the 1st round.
Stiverne, 6’2”, has a fighting style that would seem to be made to order for Deontay, as he likes to hang back and fight off the ropes. Deontay does really well against fighters that stay on the outside and pin themselves to the ropes. Stiverne will obviously need to change his fighting style for the Deontay fight otherwise he’ll not last long. Even if Stiverne comes forward, he’s going to be asking for trouble if he walks into a right hand from Deontay. As good as Stiverne’s chin is, he’s not superman, and he won’t be able to handle too many of Deontay’s right hands if he’s hit flush with them during the first 4 rounds.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Stiverne is serious or not about wanting to fight Deontay next. If he takes the fight then you have to give Stiverne a lot of respect, because he could dodge it and let the WBC strip him of the belt. It would save him a potential knockout loss, but he would no longer have the WBC title in his possession.
Comments are closed.