Deontay Wilder vs. Andrzej Wawrzyk on Feb.25

By Boxing News - 12/20/2016 - Comments

Image: Deontay Wilder vs. Andrzej Wawrzyk on Feb.25

Ny Allan Fox: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder is said to be fighting #12 WBC contender Andrzej Wawrzyk on February 25 in his hometown in the Legacy Arena Birmingham, Alabama. It’s not official yet, but that’s the fight the 31-year-old Wilder is reportedly fighting next. This is a good fight for Wilder.

It’ll give him some good practice to get ready for a possible unification fight against the 6’6” IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua or the 6’6” Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.

Wilder is coming back from a torn right bicep and broken right hand that he suffered in his win over Chris Arreola last July. It was a solid 8th round TKO win for Wilder despite him being forced to use just his left hand after he injured his right in the 4th round.

Wilder ended up having surgery on both injuries. Wilder had more than one surgery. He’s slowly been rehabbing his right hand ever since, and he’s now ready to return to the ring in two months against the hard hitting 29-year-old Wawrzyk in Birmingham.

The one loss on Wawrzyk’s record came at the hands of Alexander Povetkin three years ago in losing a 3rd round TKO in 2013. Wawrzyk has since put together six good wins over the following heavyweights: Albert Sosnowski, Marcin Rekowski, Mike Sheppard, Patryk Kowoll, Frans Botha and Danny Williams. Wawrzyk knocked out all six of those fighters. That’s impressive. It tells you that Wawrzyk has some punching power going for him. Deontay needs to get accustomed to fighting guys with good power and good size so that he’s ready for the Joshua fight.

Wilder’s fight against Wawrzyk will be a voluntary defense for him. It’ll be his fifth voluntary defense of his World Boxing Council title he won in January 2015 against Bermane Stiverne. Wilder has since successfully defended his WBC title against Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas, Artur Szpilka and Chris Arreola.

#1 WBC Alexander Povetkin and #2 Bermane Stiverne was supposed to be fighting each other last Saturday night in a fight for the interim WBC heavyweight title in Ekaterinburg, Russia. That fight failed to happen after the 37-year-old Povetkin tested positive for the banned substance ostarine.

Stiverne pulled out of the fight, and Povetkin beat replacement opponent Duhaupas. The WBC is going to be making a ruling soon on Povetkin’s situation to determine whether to suspend him or not. The WBC already withdrew sanctioning for Povetkin’s fight against Duhaupas, otherwise Povetkin would already be the interim WBC champion.

Stiverne wants to be the one that is made Wilder’s mandatory. The WBC will make a decision on that as well in the near future. Wilder will need to defend his title against someone for his mandatory defense. It’ll be two year since Wilder won his title next month, and that’s two years without defending against his mandatory challenger.

This should be a good fight between Wilder and Wawrzyk. The two tall heavyweights have excellent punching power. It would have been better if Wilder had faced Povetkin or Stiverne for his next fight, but unforeseen circumstances with Povetkin’s positive drug test removed any chances of that fight taking place.