Bryant Jennings to face Wilder vs. Stiverne winner

By Boxing News - 07/27/2014 - Comments

perez34By Scott Gilfoid: With his win last night over a pudgy looking Mike Perez (20-0-1, 12 KOs), #2 WBC Bryant Jennings (19-0, 10 KOs) earned a shot to fight for the WBC heavyweight title against the winner of the November fight between Deontay Wilder and WBC belt holder Bermane Stiverne.

Jennings will likely take a tune-up fight before he faces the winner of the Wilder-Stiverne fight though, because he’s clearly not going to be getting that title shot until early 2015 given that those two will be fighting in November.

Jennings, 6’3”, 222lbs, is going to need to raise his game considerably from what we saw last night against Perez if he wants to have a chance of beating Wilder or Stiverne. I expect that Jennings will be facing Deontay and not Stiverne, but either way he’s going to be in big trouble against either of those guys.

The 6’7” Deontay is simply a far, far better puncher than Jennings, and it’s going be awfully tough for Jennings to be able to hand in there with him if he merely covers up for the first 6 rounds of the fight like we saw last night.

Believe me, if Jennings comes out just covering up against Wilder, he’s going to have his own gloves tattooed into the side of his head, because Deontay will knock him out just by hitting him on the gloves that are glued to his face. The shock waves from Deontay’s punches travel through his opponent’s gloves when they have them in front of their face the way that Jennings likes to do.

Stiverne will also be nothing but trouble for Jennings because he’s a much better puncher than Mike Perez. Stiverne is a solid heavyweight, and not a guy that’s carrying around 30 pounds of excess weight like Perez.

Let’s face it; Perez is a cruiserweight fighting in the heavyweight division. Stiverne has the power and the size to take Jennings apart. Stiverne won’t face the same way we saw Perez do last night, and that means that Jennings is going to lose pretty much every round of the fight against him.

Jennings’ management needs to work on trying to get him to use his legs more to avoid sitting on the ropes where he’ll be a punching bag for Deontay or Stiverne. Jennings cannot fight that way against those guys because they punch too hard and they’ll never get tired of hitting him in the head, unlike Perez.

If Jennings is hoping that Stiverne or Deontay will gas out from punching him in the head, even with his gloves glued to his face, he’s kidding himself. He’ll be knocked out long before either of those guys get tired of punching him. We’re talking about levels in terms of punching power.

Perez can punch a little, but he’s nowhere near the same level that Deontay and Stiverne are in power. Those guys are at the upper level and are capable of knocking you out with a single shot. Perez is someone that needs to punch someone for a long period of time before he gets a knockout. Jennings is going to find out quickly the difference in power when he gets in the ring with one of these guys.



Comments are closed.