(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: At today’s final press conference, WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and challenger Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) were both in fine form in jawing back and forth with one another to hype their fight for this Saturday night on January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deontay, a much better talker a quicker with than Stiverne, got the better of their trash talking by a long mile.
Stiverne, a quiet type, was out of his element in trying to match wits with Deontay, who is clearly one of the best trash talkers the heavyweight division has seen since Muhammad Ali.
What was particularly interesting was when the two fighters stood in a faceoff with one another. At that point you could see how much bigger Deontay Wilder was than the 6’2” Stiverne, and it was pretty startling. The 36-year-old Stiverne looked like a fat cruiserweight standing next to a heavyweight, and it gave one a sense of what could be in store for the much shorter Stiverne on Saturday night. If he can’t get near enough to the 6’7” Wilder to land his power shots, this could be a very, very one-sided fight with Deontay toying with Stiverne until he lowers the boom on the Haitian fighter.
“I aint never been so ready to whup another man,” Wilder said about his opponent Bermane. “Stiverne just a tourist’ with the belt. I’m about to send this Haitian, on permanent vacation. Everyone has been talking for you, but they can’t fight for you. You don’t understand what is coming. I ain’t scared to talk. I’m going to back it up. I’m ready. Watch me pass my test. I promise you I will do it. This is my time. This is my purpose. I have never been so ready to whoop a man in my life. This is real. I don’t play. It’s been a long journey. Many people wrote me off long ago & still are. I like that.”
Deontay sees Stiverne as just a visitor from Canada with a title belt that will be exchanging hands on Saturday night when Deontay rips it from him by knocking him out in their fight on Showtime Championship Boxing.
For his part, Stiverne comes across as confident of victory, but without the size to back of his confidence, he could be rendered unconscious. You don’t like to see fighters as short as Stiverne going up against guys Deontay’s size because these kinds of fights frequently turn out to be one-sided.
What we do know is that Stiverne was dominated by a 40+ year old Ray Austin in their fight just four years ago, and Stiverne looked over-matched against the 6’6” Austin until getting him out of there in the 10th. The thing is Austin had zero power to speak of, so Stiverne was fortunate to just be getting slapped around until knocked around the ring by Austin. It’s going to be a different story on Saturday night though, because Deontay not only is bigger than Austin, he’s got a lot more punching power. As such, if Austin was able to dominate the smaller Stiverne then we very likely will see Deontay knocking him out quickly.
“After this fight, you will never ever hear about the Bronze Bomber again,” Stiverne said. “You better shut up. The champ is talking. You had your time. I’m gonna whoop you, boy! I’m gonna keep your record clean. You ain’t getting past the 4th round. You gonna get hurt! I ain’t a cab driver. I ain’t a one hit wonder. This is the real deal. This belt here ain’t going nowhere. I don’t worry about how I go in the ring. I worry about how I get out the ring.”
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