By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) expects to be back in the ring in the next three months against an opponent still to be determined in June. Deontay, 6’7”, had been hoping to get a fight against Britain’s Tyson Fury, but unfortunately Fury is opting to fight IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko instead.
Fury hopes that fight will take place later this year in September, but it’s still up in the air whether that fight will take place at that time. It’s possible Fury could wind up waiting a little longer.
Wilder impressed recently with his one-sided domination of WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne in beating him by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision last January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight was supposed to have been a competitive one, and there were some boxing fans who felt that Stiverne had a good chance of knocking Wilder out early due to the talented American never having shown in his previous fights that he could box. It’s not news that a lot of fans had doubted Deontay, because it had been this way since he started knocking out his opposition left and right at the start of his career. But Deontay shut-up his critics with his performance against Stiverne by showing that he could box, move and jab for 12 rounds.
“We hope to be back in June,” Deontay’s trainer Jay Deas said via RingTV.com.
Just who Deontay will be facing in June is unclear. A couple of good options for Deontay are #6 WBC Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne and #9 WBC Manuel Charr. Those would be good stay busy fights for Deontay to make for his optional defense. They’re ranking in the top 10, but they would still be the equivalent of stay busy fights for Wilder, because you can make an argument that neither of those fighters rate to be ranked as high as they are. Of those two, Charr would be the better in terms of building up a fight between him and Deontay, as Charr is excellent at building up interest in his fights with his trash talking.
Deontay vs. Charr would be fairly big fight, especially if it were to be staged in Germany. I could see it selling out an arena over there. Browne would be interesting as far as the action the two-way action the fight would have. Browne is a big puncher who tends to come forward all the time looking to slug.
Browne would be the ideal opponent for Deontay to face in order to score a knockout victory. Browne would make it an exciting fight with his punching power, but I’m not sure that the U.S fans would be too excited at seeing Wilder face him, because he’s not someone that the casual boxing fans are familiar with. At least with Charr, he could get boxing fans interested in the fight with his over the top trash talking, even though he’d likely not make it past the 2nd round.
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