By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten heavyweight talent Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) will be defending his WBC strap against one of two undefeated heavily ranked top 10 contenders on September 26th against #3 WBC Vyacheslav Glazkov (20-0-1, 12 KOs) or #6 WBC Lucas Browne (22-0, 19 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC, according to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times.
This is a voluntary defense for the 6’7” Wilder, so he’d be showing a ton of courage to face one of those two guys for his next title defense. However, Wilder will be in tough in his fight after this when he has to defend his WBC strap against his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin in early 2016.
It’s best that Wilder face someone that is similar to Povetkin now than facing a guy lower ranked down the WBC food chain who is completely different from Povetkin. If Wilder is to get ready for Povetkin, he needs a fighter that is similar to him. Of the choices between Glazkov and Browne, I’d say the 6’3” Glazkov is more like Povetkin than the 6’4” Browne. In fact, I’d say it’s a slam dunk for Glazkov. He’s shorter like the 6’2” Povetkin, he has the same Eastern European fighting style given that he’s from Ukraine, and he’s also a 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in the super heavyweight class. Browne is nothing like Povetkin at all. I rate Browne as a better puncher than Povetkin, but totally different with his fighting style.
Deontay Wilder tells me he's aiming for Sept. 26 prime-time NBC return vs. Vyacheskav Gkazkov or Lucas Browne. Says Klitschko in 2016.
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) June 29, 2015
Glazkov has an excellent chin and very good power when he loads up on his shots. He’s able to take enormous punishment to the head, as we saw in his wins over Steve Cunningham, Derric Rossy, Tomasz Adamek and Malik Scott. Glazkov’s wins over Adamek, Scott, Cunningham and Rossy were all controversial.
A lot of boxing fans thought that Glazkov deserved to lose all four of the fights, but that’s not important. What’s important is that Glazkov has a similar fighting style to Povetkin, excellent punching power, and an ability to take head shots like no tomorrow. If Wilder wants to defeat Glazkov, he’s going to need to jump on this guy immediately from the 1st round because this guy is just going to keep coming forward all night long to try and take him out.
Browne, 36, is also someone that Wilder will need to dispatch immediately if he wants to retain his WBC title. Browne looks to slug constantly, and he’s clearly one of the harder punchers in the heavyweight division. His hand speed and finesse are lacking, but his ability to punch is not. Wilder can’t let this guy hang around for more than three or four rounds because he would have too much of a chance of scoring a knockout. I mean, I think can out-box this guy no problem, but it would be a much easier fight if Wilder were to look to poleaxe him in the 1st round with a big right hand so that Browne never gets his confidence up like we saw with Molina. Wilder can’t get these guys get their at bats because it changes the whole fight.
Wilder, 29, is coming off of a less than spectacular title defense against Eric Molina from earlier this month on June 13th in a fight where Wilder defeated Molina by a 9th round KO in Birmingham, Alabama. There’s still some debate whether Wilder chose to carry Molina until the 9th round by opting not to go for a knockout in the early rounds. Wilder rarely used his right hand in the first eight rounds of the fight, as he focused instead on just spearing Molina with his jab and nailing him with left hooks.
Wilder’s left looked much improved from past fights, but it wasn’t good enough to make easy work of Molina. As such, Molina was able to make until the 9th round when Wilder finally put him out of his misery with a scorching right hand to the head. If Wilder landed that same shot in the 1st round, it would have been over with right away.
The question is why did Wilder wait until the 9th round until leveling Molina with that right hand. My theory is Wilder wanted to toy with Molina for as long as possible in order to make the fight last longer for his Birmingham fans. You have to remember that Wilder was fighting in front of his fans in Alabama his home state, so it stands to reason that he might want to let the fight last as long as possible before getting Molina out of there.
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