Deontay Wilder v Eric Molina? You can’t be serious

By Gavin Duthie - 05/06/2015 - Comments

deontay32 - Copy (2)By Gav Duthie: The curse of the voluntary defence strikes again. Like a coiled snake the champion is picking on the weakest prey available to strike on when the choice is given. After Deontay Wilder 33-0 (32) became the first American since 2006 to win a heavyweight world title he talked Klitschko, he talked Fury and 5 months later the rumors are that he is going to fight Eric Molina 23-2 (17). 

Voluntary defence

I feel like a broken record talking about voluntary defences but it is with justification. The idea is to not impose a mandatory on a brand new champion so as to give them a choice. Fans want this to mean they will challenge a big contender in reality they are looking at the top 15 ranked opponents (Eric Molina #12 with the WBC) and picking the weakest one available. The most recent example being Anthony Dirrell-Badou Jack where thankfully Jack won. This time though there is zero chance Molina will win. 

Eric Molina

With the exception of maybe Molina’s mum nobody else thinks he deserves a title shot. The 33 year old is decent but was knocked out in one round against Chris Arreola in his only step up to contender level. In fairness he did hurt Arreola but was caught with two left hooks as he went in for the kill. He has won his last five outings with his last win against Raphael Zambrano Love who fights Anthony Joshua on Saturday. If this is the kind of win that entitles you to a world title shot then god help us. Molina is ranked #16 by boxrec in the best Americans and is just inside the top 50 overall. 

Tony Thompson 40-5 (27)

The American veteran is ranked #2 by boxrec for Americans (Wilder #1 of course) and #7 overall and says he is ready to face Wilder now. Thompson is a good fighter but he is beatable as proven by Pulev and Takam recently so in theory Wilder should have no problems. 

Politics

I’m not blaming Wilder I am pretty sure he does genuinely want to fight the best and when Povetkin-Perez happens he will have a very dangerous mandatory challenger. I’m pretty sure the promoters are pushing this but Wilder should refuse to fight this guy he has done absolutely nothing to deserve a title shot. 



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