Fury picks Deontay to defeat Povetkin

By Boxing News - 03/29/2016 - Comments

1-160116_WilderSzpilka_20552By Scott Gilfoid: IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is picking WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) to beat his mandatory opponent Alexander Povetki (30-1, 22 KOs) in their fight in two months from now on May 21 at the Khodynka Ice Palace, in Moscow, Russia.

Fury sees the 6’2” Povetkin as being too little and too fragile-chinned in order to beat a big and highly athletic fighter like the 6’7” Wilder, who also has big punching power with his right hand. Fury notes that Povetkin hit the deck repeatedly in his 12 round decision loss to former world champion Wladimir Klitschko three years ago.

Povetkin looked like he didn’t belong inside the same ring with the 6’6” Wladimir in that contest, and it’s not surprising that Wladimir easily won the fight.

“I think Wilder will chin him because the fact that Povetkin is too small, and chin isn’t special,” said Fury to IFL TV. “I’m going to show to the fans how small Povetkin really is. [Fury then holds up a picture of him standing next to a much shorter Povetkin]. He’s like a midget compared to us. Look at the size of him. He’s like a midget. Wilder is as big as me. Look how big I look. Look how big Hughie is compared to him [Povetkin]. He looks like a lightweight. So if Wilder can’t chin him? I know his chin is lightweight because every time Klitschko touched him in the face, he went down. He goes down about 19 times. So there you are. Look, I’ll fight Klitschko, then the winner of Povetkin-Wilder, which will be Wilder in my opinion, and the winner of Martin and Joshua, which will be Martin in my opinion,” said Fury.

I totally agree with Fury. Povetkin is just too little to defeat a guy the same size of Wilder, especially with all the shots Povetkin is going to need to be able to take in order to have a chance of winning the fight.

The thing about Wilder is he doesn’t punch with major power until he gets all of his leverage on his shots. When he’s close to his opponents, he doesn’t generate the tremendous power on his shots that he needs to get them out. This is why we saw Wilder’s recent opponent Artur Szpilka hang around until the 9th round in their recent fight in January of this year. But when Wilder is at the correct distance to get maximum power on his punches, there is nobody in the division that compares to him in the power department. Wilder reminds me of a heavyweight version of Thomas “Hitman” Hearns.

Wilder is built a lot like Hearns, and he has the same one-punch power on his shots that we saw from the tall and wiry Hearns. If you looked at Hearns’ old fights on Youtube, you could see him measuring his opponents with his left hand. Hearn did this in order to get the proper distance to get the most power on his shots.

Hearns realized that he was only able to punch with devastating power when he was at the proper distance to get leverage on his shots. Wilder is the same way. The difference between Wilder throwing his shots at close range and at the proper distance from the outside is like night and day. His power is out of this world when he throws his shots from the proper distance. I don’t see Povetlkin being able to handle Wilder’s power without hitting the deck for the 10 count once he lands his first flush shot.

Povetkin beat four guys recently to get his shot at Wilder, but none of them were in the class of Wilder. Povetkin beat a bunch of medium sized heavyweights to become Wilder’s mandatory challenger. Now that Povetkin is his mandatory, he’ll be stepping up to fight the super heavyweight sized Wilder, and I see him being too short to deal Wilder’s size and power. Fights like this make you realize that the heavyweight division needs to be split up from a regular heavyweight and the super heavyweight division like it is in the amateur ranks. You need to be able to keep the smaller heavyweights from getting manhandled by the giant guys like Deontay because it’s just not fair.



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