Deontay Wilder hurt right hand in 4th round against Stiverne

By Boxing News - 01/18/2015 - Comments

deontay201(Photo credit: Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Scott Gilfoid: If you’re wondering why heavyweight knockout artist Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) was unable to score a knockout last night against the badly beaten and weary WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-2-1, 21 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, you only have to know that the 6’7” Wilder injured his right hand in the 4th round.

From that point on, Wilder had pain in his right each time he would land it. Eventually, Wilder rarely threw right hands after the 7th round. The pain was obviously a huge factor, because he couldn’t land his shots the way he did before hurting it.

“Wilder hurt his right hand in the fourth and held an ice pack on it at the post-fight news conference,” Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports said.

If you look at the first four rounds you’ll notice that Deontay was putting everything he had in his right hands. However, after hurting his hand, Wilder focused more on throwing his right hand with perfect form rather than loading up on it like he’d been doing earlier.

As it was, Wilder won the fight by the lopsided scores of 118-109, 119-108 and 120-107. Those scores pretty shows how dominating Wilder’s performance was in the fight. The scores should have been even more one-sided if referee Tony Weeks hadn’t blown a call in the 2nd round when he failed to give Wilder credit for a knock down in which he was tackled by Stiverne as he was falling down after getting nailed by a big right hand from Wilder. It was just a terrible blow it call by Weeks.

“I’m just happy to bring this belt back to America officially. I think I answered a lot of questions tonight,” Wilder said via Fightnews.com. “We knew we could go twelve rounds, we knew we could take a punch, we knew we could give it. All the hard work was done in camp…I just wanted to show the world what Deontay Wilder was capable of and I think I proved that tonight. I don’t want nobody to doubt me no more.”

Wilder definitely proved a lot of boxing fans wrong by being able to go 12 rounds, and doing it without his right hand for the second half of the fight. Wilder won the second half of the action by using his jab, touching him with right hands occasionally, and moving a lot.

Unlike IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, Wilder didn’t need to tie Stiverne up all night long in order to shut down his offense. Instead, Wilder relied on his jabs and movement to keep Stiverne at bay in the second half of the fight. Wilder did take some big shots from Stiverne at times, but those punches were still fairly rare and they had little effect on the 6’7” Wilder.

“He proved everyone wrong,” Wilder’s trainer Jay Deas said via Yahoo Sports. “Can he go 12 rounds? Yes, he can. Does he have a power punch? Yes, he does. Can he overcome adversity? Yes, he can. Can he be the heavyweight champion of the world? Yes, he can, and yes he did.”

The win opens up a possible fight against Tyson Fury in his next fight for Wilder, if the World Boxing Council will allow him to take that fight, and if Fury is interested in facing the hard hitting Wilder. My guess is both the WBC and Fury won’t be agreeable to the fight happening.



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