Deontay Wilder to fight in January, says Espinoza

By Boxing News - 10/08/2015 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) will be defending his WBC title in three months from now against possibly one of these names according to Showtime vice president of Sports Stephen Espinoza: Bryant Jennings, Vyacheslav Glazkov, Tony Thompson, or Alexander Povetkin.

Wilder, 6’7”, wants to get back into the ring in a hurray after his brilliant performance last month in stopping France’s Johann Duhaupas (32-3, 20 KOs) in the 11th round on September 26th on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.

Wilder’s fight in January will be televised by Showtime Championship Boxing and the venue they’re looking at staging it at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. That venue suggests that Wilder will be facing the talented 31-year-old Jennings, because his hometown of Philadelphia is only 97 miles away from New York.

There’s no other reason to stage one of Wilder’s fights in New York unless he’s fighting a guy from that part of the United States. Putting Wilder in with Povetkin or Glazkov in New York makes no sense at all.

There’s very little chance that a fight between Wilder and Povetkin could even be made in the U.S., because it will likely go to a purse bid and Povetkin’s promoter will have a very good chance of winning the bid to then stage the fight in Moscow, Russia.

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“Deontay would like to continue to stay as active as he has,” Espinoza said to RingTV.com. “So we’re looking to have him back in January, very likely on Showtime in a step-up fight. It could be anywhere from Povetkin to (No. 7 Vyacheslav) Glazkov to Jennings to (No. 9) Tony Thompson. He wants to continue the momentum that he’s built from being active as he moves toward what he has said is his goal, which is eventually (Wladimir) Klitschko next year.”

The 6’5” Tony Thompson has a fight against Malik Scott on October 30th of this month on Premier Boxing Champions on Bounce TV from The Venue at UCF, in Orlando, Florida. It’s possible that Thompson could come back within three months to fight Wilder in January, but it’ll depend on how difficult his fight with Scott is.

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If it’s a grueling affair with Thompson taking a lot of punishment and suffering a cut or some other injury, then there’s little chance that he’ll be able to get back in the ring to fight Wilder in January. What we don’t want is for Thompson to be still licking his wounds from the Scott fight when he enters the ring against the hard hitting Wilder.

For Wilder, this will be his third straight voluntary defense when he fights in January if he doesn’t face Povetkin. But you can’t blame Wilder for wanting to stay busy and entertain the boxing fans. Povetkin is the one who scheduled a fight for November 4th against Mariusz Wach.

If Povetkin didn’t take that fight, then a Wilder-Povetkin fight would quickly be put together and the two of them would likely be facing each other in January. But with Povetkin having a possibly difficult fight against the powerful Wach, he might not be ready to fight Wilder for a number of months. As such, Wilder needs to stay busy by fighting as frequently as he can while he waits for Povetkin to get down with his fight.

Since winning the WBC heavyweight title in January against Bermane Stiverne by a 12 round unanimous decision, Wilder has beaten Eric Molina and Johann Duhaupas by knockouts. They were both very impressive performances from the talented Wilder.



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