By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) heard the news last Saturday night of IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s 7th round annihilation of American Dominic Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs), and he says he’s ready to fight Joshua right now.
Deontay says that Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) should make the fight with him because he’s ready to face him now rather than later like his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport is talking about.
“Don’t wait, let’s make the date,” said Wilder about Joshua on Premier Boxing Champions on CBS last Saturday night. “They say, ‘sooner or later.’ Let’s make soon right now!” said Wilder.
I totally agree with you, Mr. Deontay. Joshua and Hearn SHOULD make the date and sign their John Hancock’s on the dotted line, but will they? My guess is that’s a big No. Hearn said he wanted to put Joshua in with IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury for November. That’s not going to happen now that Fury is injured with an ankle problem.
We’re probably not going to see Fury defend his straps until October at the earliest when he faces Wladimir Klitschko for the second time. I don’t expect Fury to win that fight. Wladimir looks like he’s ready to avenge his loss, and I think that fight is going to wind up as a quick massacre similar to the James “Buster” Douglas vs. Evander Holyfield match from 16 years ago, when Holyfield destroyed Douglas in three rounds to capture his IBF/WBA/WBC heavyweight titles. That fight was Buster’s first defense of his belts that he had won off Mike Tyson in his previous fight in February 1990. Douglas didn’t hold onto his titles for very long obviously. I think Fury’s title reign will be as short as Douglas’ unfortunately.
I think we’re going to see Joshua face former WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne in his next fight rather than a dangerous guy like Deontay, because I don’t think he’s nearly ready for a fight against the 6’7” talent. Joshua looked slow last night against Breazeale. He was pushing his punches like he was meeting resistance from Earth’s atmosphere. There was an opposing force pushing back at Joshua each time he would throw his shots, and he lacked the explosiveness that you would expect from a fighter with a physique like the one he has. In contrast, the leaner, taller, faster and more powerful Deontay throws his shots with pure explosive power.
Deontay has got cat-like quickness with his shots, and nimble feet of a dancer. You’re not going to see Deontay standing directly in front of Joshua all night long making it easy for him to throw his badly telegraphed punches because that’s not what Deontay does. He likes to move, stay on the outside, and then catch you with one of his huge right hand bombs.
Joshua is so used to not having someone throw punches. I just don’t think he’s going to react well in being in the ring with a guy like Deontay, who will not only be throwing shots back, but will be looking to take his head off with each shot he throws.
Deontay will have mean intentions with every punch, and I think that it’ll go badly for Joshua just like it did in his fights against Roberto Cammarelle, Erislandy Savon and Mihai Nistor. Those guys were all trying to knock Joshua out with each punch they threw, and they had him on the defensive from round one. Nistor ended up knocking out Joshua, while Cammarelle and Savon were both arguably robbed of victories at the 2012 London Olympics in the minds of many boxing fans.
I still don’t know what got into Breazeale last night for him not to throw any punches. He was not using his right hand at all. It was all jabs from Breazeale. By the 2nd round, I was thinking that perhaps Breazeale was injured because he was not using his right hand. When you’ve got a nice right hand like Breazeale, it doesn’t make sense for you not to use it, especially when things were going so badly for him right off the bat.
Things were looking mighty bleak for Breazeale by round six, and yet he still wasn’t using his right hand. When you know things are not working out for you, you’re going to want to empty out your toolkit to try every tool you have. We didn’t see that last night. Breazeale stuck with his jab and didn’t veer away from that.
With Deontay, he would definitely be bouncing right hands off Joshua’s head all night long for better or for worse. You’re not going to see Deontay freezing in the spotlight and deciding he’s only going to throw jabs rather than his weapons. If Joshua wants to beat Deontay, he’s going to need to take his powerful right hand shots all night long. Can Joshua do that? I doubt it. I hate to say it but if Hearn makes the Joshua vs. Deontay fight this year, I see ending badly for Joshua because he’s too slow and upright for him to take the kind of monstrous right hand bombs that Deontay would be hitting him with in my opinion.