Deontay Wilder confident his power will get him past Povetkin

By Boxing News - 04/20/2016 - Comments

1-deontay-wilder (16)By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) has a little more than one month to go before he defends his title against the aging 36-year-old Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) on May 21 at the Khodynka Ice Palace, in Moscow, Russia.

Some boxing fans are picked Povetkin as the favorite due to his superior experience. However, Povetkin has never beaten anyone of Deontay’s class before, so you have to forget about all the wins that Povetkin has had over smaller fighters like Eddie Chambers, Ruskan Chagaev and Mike Perez.

Povetkin has not looked good when fighting bigger fighters, and he’s facing one of the tallest fighters in his career. That’s going to be a big problem for Povetkin regardless of him having the hometown advantage. He’s still going to have an awful time trying to deal with Deontay’s height, reach, speed, power and youth.

“They automatically assume he’s going to be the best, he’s going to be the toughest, or, ‘Now this is finally a test for Deontay Wilder!’” Deontay said to wiat.com. “He’s tough, I can give him that.”

Povetkin is good against stationary fighters around the same height as himself. If you stand still and you’re about 6’2” to 6’3”, Povetkin will do well against you. I’m not saying he’ll do well against all fighters that height, because if he were to fight Luis Ortiz, I think he would get blasted out by him. The same with Joseph Parker.

Povetkin is one step removed from the cruiserweight division. If you split the heavyweight division into three parts, you’ve got the small heavyweights like Povetkin, and then large heavyweights like Luis Ortiz, and then the super heavyweights like Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschko.

It’s hard for the small heavyweights to beat the super heavyweights because they’re too little to do much unless the super heavyweights stand still and let the small heavyweights get within punching range. Deontay obviously won’t be doing that when he gets inside the ring with him on May 21.

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“if I land and hit you correctly, you may take one or two but you are not going to take too many,” Wilder said. “And, by a guy not moving his head I have an easy target right there. It will be a good night.”

This is going to be tough on Povetkin because he’s a basic plodder, and he’s not done well when he had to step up and fight a guy with mobility. Wladimir beat Povetkin with ease three years ago in pounding out a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision in Moscow, Russia. Povetkin was knocked down four times in that fight. Povetkin has since won his last four fights against Manuel Charr, Carlos Takam, Mike Perez and Mariusz Wach. The only good fighter of that bunch is Takam, and he gave Povetkin a lot of problems.

I think Wilder will connect with one is his big right hand power shots and get Povetkin out of there like he did his recent opponents Artur Szpilka, Johann Duhaupas and Eric Molina. Povetkin is no different those guys when it comes to the chin department. Having the fight take place in Moscow won’t likely be any help for Povetkin. I think it’s just going to make it worse for him because he’ll get beaten in front of his own fans.