Wilder: Joshua vs. Breazeale is 50-50 fight

By Boxing News - 06/22/2016 - Comments

Image: Wilder: Joshua vs. Breazeale is 50-50 fight

By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it doesn’t look like WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder sees this Saturday’s fight between IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and challenger Dominic Breazeale as a mismatch like many boxing fans and writers do. Joshua is a heavy favorite to defeat the 6’7” Breazeale. However, Deontay sees the contest as a 50-50 fight, because he thinks Breazeale is going to come into the match looking to make a name for himself.

This is Breazeale’s big chance to make a fortune becoming set for life financially if he can beat Joshua, because a win over the British fighter will set up a big money rematch between them. Breazeale could make millions in a rematch.

Wilder will be a guest commentator working with Showtime Boxing this Saturday for the Joshua-Breazeale fight, which will be piped into the United States and televised on Showtime for Americans to watch. Joshua just signed a multi-fight contract with Showtime. If Joshua loses the fight, Showtime will have another fighter that they signed that was beaten immediately. Showtime recently signed light welterweight Ruslan Provodnikov, only to see him lose his first fight of the contract with John Molina.

“I definitely see the fight as a 50-50,” said Wilder via espn.com. “You’ve got two big heavyweights, and the challenger wants what the champion has, and the champion wants to keep what he has. It’s going to be interesting because we’ve seen Breazeale in a lot of wars. He’s almost been taken out by some of the smaller heavyweights, he’s been punched around, but he has always survived.”

Joshua is definitely vulnerable against punchers that go after his chin immediately, as we saw his fight against Dillian Whyte last December. If Whyte hadn’t come into that fight with an injured left shoulder and if he’d been in better shape, I think he would have won the fight. Whyte had the better chin, and his power was giving Joshua major problems before his left shoulder popped in the 2nd round, leaving him to fight with one arm the rest of the way.

Joshua struggles against punchers that come right after him looking to take his head off. Joshua was stopped by the hard hitting Romanian fighter Mihai Nistor in the third round of their fight in 2011 at the 39th European Amateur Boxing Championships in Ankara, Turkey. Here’s the Joshua vs. Nistor fight. Nistor showed no respect for Joshua’s power at all, period. Nistor went right after Joshua and was nailing him with huge left hands to the head from round one. When Nistor wasn’t attacking, he was smart to stay out of range of Joshua’s shots. Nistor would then come forward, duck Joshua’s incoming and then nail him with left-right combinations to the head that drove Joshua back against the ropes. Joshua looked frightened through most of the fight, and that’s because Nistor was putting everything he had in each punch he threw. There was absolutely no finesse about it with Nistor. The guy was loading up with tremendous shots, and Joshua could not handle his power at all. That was evident. The thing is, Joshua was a better fighter in 2011 than he is now in my view, because he was lighter, faster and younger. Joshua didn’t have all that useless much that he’s now carrying around.

Back in 2011, Joshua had the right amount of muscles on his frame for him to fight, and I think he was very good. From 2009 to 2011, I think were Joshua’s best years as a fighter. He’s kind of gone downhill as a pro in packing on beach muscle that has slowed him down, making him look like a body builder trying to fight. I don’t know what’s happening with his training team, but I can’t see any high quality trainer giving Joshua the green light to continue to bulk up.

Of course, Breazeale wants it. If he whips Joshua, he’ll be set for life in terms of sweet cash. We’ll see a rematch between them, and Breazeale will be swimming in good clean cash from that fight. If Breazeale beats Joshua a second time, then he would be looking to make big money in unification fights against Deontay and IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury or Wladimir Klitschko.

It would obviously be better for Breazeale if Fury beats Wladimir next month in their fight on July 9, because I think Breazeale can make a lot more money fighting Fury than he can against Wladimir. There would be decent money for a fight against Wladimir, but probably nowhere near as much cash as there would be for a match against Fury. As such, Breazeale is going to be gunning for Joshua on Saturday night and looking to beat him and take his title. There’s too much on the line for this fight in terms of life changing cash for Breazeale not to want to beat him.

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Breazeale needs to study Joshua’s fight against Nistor closely if he wants to beat him, because the Romanian fighter clearly knew how to beat him. If Nistor had turned pro, I think he would beat Joshua every time because he had the style and the punching power to hand him losses one after another. I don’t think Joshua would ever be able to make it past three rounds against Nistor, because he was staggering from his shots. If they had let that fight continue, I think Nistor would have knocked Joshua out in the clinical sense.

“They’re going to keep taking punches, they’re going to keep getting knocked down and they’re going to keep getting up,” said Deontay about Joshua’s opposition now that he’s champion. “This is for a world title. This can bring you out of poverty, you know what I mean? For that reason, these challengers are hungry. That’s one of the things that I had to realize.”

I totally agree with Mr. Wilder. I think it’s a different story now that Joshua is the hunted and facing guys that can change their lives if they win. Fighting Joshua and beating him can mean big money for the challengers. Joshua brings in a lot of money with his Sky Box Office PPV fights, and beating him can bring life changing cash for his challengers.

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Breazeale can get his beak wet with that money if he can beat Joshua on Saturday night. It’s financial security for Breazeale, and all he needs to do is knockout Joshua for him to get that security. I mean, I don’t think Breazeale can win a decision in this fight unfortunately. He’s the visiting fighter in London. I think he might have to KO Joshua for him to have a chance of winning the fight.