By Scott Gilfoid: The highly anticipated fight between WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and the talented #1 WBC Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) look like it finally has a date in venue.
According to ESPN’s Dan Rafael, the Stiverne-Wilder bout will take place on January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two fighters have gone back and forth for months in attempting to put the fight together.
There were three cancelled purse bids, and it looked at one point that the fight would never take place despite the huge interest from boxing fans in the United States. However, Stiverne has to fight the 6’7” Deontay in the 1st quarter of 2015, because he’s his mandatory challenger and the title defense will be overdue if he fails to take the challenge.
The Stiverne vs. Wilder fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing.
The venue of the fight arguably helps Stiverne more than Deontay, as Stiverne lives in Las Vegas. With that said, Deontay will likely enter the ring with the MGM Grand fans firmly on his side. The reason for that is due to Deontay’s friendly personality, as well his knockout string.
If Deontay is able to continue his knockout string to 50-0, he could become the biggest thing since Mike Tyson in the U.S. But before he can do that, Deontay will need to beat Stiverne, Wladimir Klitschko and Bryant Jennings. Wladimir wants to fight for the WBC title, so we could very well see Deontay facing him in 2015 if Deontay gets past Stiverne.
Deontay, who previously helped Wladimir out with sparring for his title defense against Mariusz Wach, is very interested in facing Wladimir. Deontay got in a lot of rounds of sparring with Wladimir during that camp, and he pretty much knows what he’d be up against in a fight against the Ukrainian fighter.
Deontay hasn’t made any comments about Wladimir’s recent poor showing against Kubrat Pulev, but you can bet that Deontay is licking his chops at the idea of facing Wladimir after that fight. Wladimir fought like he had no hand-eye coordination, and he looked shaky each time the light hitting Pulev nailed him with power shots.
If a weak puncher like Pulev was able to trouble Wladimir with his punches, you can only imagine what a guy like Deontay could do to Wladimir when he lands one of his right hand bombs.
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