By Scott Gilfoid: If IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko wants to try and capture the final piece of the puzzle in looking to grab Deontay Wilder’s WBC heavyweight title, then he’s going to need to come to America in 2016 to try and win the belt, because the talented 6’7” Deontay doesn’t plan on going outside of the U.S to defend his WBC title if that’s what the 39-year-old Wladimir has in mind.
Right now, Wladimir will need to get past unbeaten No.1 WBO Tyson Fury in their fight on October 24th for him to have a chance of winning Deontay’s WBC title. We don’t even know if Wladimir will be able to get past the light hitting Fury in order to face the hard hitting Wilder next year. But if he does beat him, then he’s going to need to come to America for the privilege of facing Wilder because he’s not about to go to Germany and find his fans out-numbered by a huge margin by Wladimir’s fans.
“We not going nowhere; we’re going to stay right here in America. We’re going to bring him here, sometime maybe mid or end of next year,” Wilder said via Fighthype. “I won’t rest in this sport until I achieve all the belts. Klitschko wants what I have. I am the legitimate heavyweight; I’m the heavyweight champion of the world. He looked real old.”
I can’t disagree with Wilder at all about Wladimir looking very, very old in his last fight against Bryant Jennings last April. Wladimir looked like a fighter well into his 40s, unable to pull the trigger on his shots anymore. Not only was Wladimir unable pull the trigger on his punches, but his accuracy was also shot to pieces. He couldn’t hit a moving target even when it was doing a lot moving.
Heck, Jennings wasn’t doing that much movement with his head, yet Wladimir couldn’t hit him at all. Even when Jennings was standing directly in front of him, Wladimir wound up missing with his punches. That fight showed pretty clearly that Wladimir has very little left. I wouldn’t want to put a percentage on it, but my guess is Wladimir is down to 50% capacity of what he once was, perhaps even less. The only thing that Wladimir has left is his ability to move around the ring well and hold like mad.
Deontay has to get past his September 26th on NBC, and his WBC mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin in early 2016. The September 26th opponent won’t be a big deal because it’s just a voluntary defense, so we’re probably talking about someone like Andy Ruiz Jr. or maybe someone ranked closer to the bottom of the WBC’s rankings. Deontay will have no problems beating the next guy.
It won’t be like his recent fight with Eric Molina where he was briefly stunned by one of his left hooks he nailed Wilder with in the 4th. That would have been a very easy fight for Wilder if he’d simply put his foot on the accelerator in the 1st or 2nd rounds and just got Molina out of there by going right hand crazy, but he played it safe and let the guy hang around instead of putting him out of his misery early.
There was a lesson there for Deontay if he’s open to learning what he did wrong in that fight. You don’t let big punchers hang around. You get them out of there as fast as possible. That was something that the late great trainer Emanuel Steward always taught, and Wilder failed to do that. The Povetkin fight will be a lot more challenging for Wilder because Povetkin has got some skills, good power and an excellent chin.
Wilder will definitely need to let his hands go early otherwise he could wind up losing the fight. He cannot afford to let Povetkin hang around for any length of time because it’s just too dangerous. Wilder doesn’t hold like Wlaimir, so it’s not an option for him to try and clinch all night long, because that’s not a part of Wilder’s game and I don’t think he’ll be able to add that to his game by the time he faces Povetkin next year.
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