By Scott Gilfoid: Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) badly punished WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-2-1, 21 KOs) last night in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 118-109, 119-108 and 120-107 to take his WBC title.
Stiverne stood up to the big shots that Wilder was landing, but afterwards Stiverne looked in bad shape when being interviewed briefly after the fight. Wilder says that Stiverne had to be taken to the hospital after the fight. It’s unclear whether this was just a precautionary measure or if it was due to him having any after effects from all the punches he’d been hit with by Wilder.
“I told him he’s never been in with anyone in the ring with my style,” Wilder said after the fight. “I just flat out beat the man up. He had to go to the hospital because of all the punches he was taking. I just had fun. It’s sad that he wasn’t able to hold onto the belt for long, but that was his destiny. I hit him every time I wanted. I didn’t show no fatigue. I didn’t force it.”
For boxing fans who thought Wilder didn’t show power last night, I think you need to watch the fight again. He was hitting Stiverne with tremendous shots, even after Wilder hurt his right hand in the 4th and 5th round. He was still pasting Stiverne with big rights to the head and body.
“The injury to the hand happened in the 4th or 5th round,” Wilder said. “He has a heck of a chin and a hard head. I had to bluff a little bit. I didn’t want to let him know I was injured or hurt. One of the things he said in the ring was ‘Your eyes are red,’ but he didn’t know I did that myself. I had to bluff a lot, but I think it’s going to be alright. You just keep on no matter what’s hurting. I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t going to say my hand is hurting. I was going to keep hitting him with it.”
Wilder hurt his right eye the day before the fight when he was working out with a rubber contraption that slipped from his foot and snapped him in his eye. Thankfully, it didn’t cause the fight to be cancelled, but Wilder reportedly had double vision in the injured eye during the fight, according to Yahoo Sports.
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