Breazeale wants Deontay Wilder fight

By Boxing News - 02/26/2017 - Comments

Image: Breazeale wants Deontay Wilder fight

By Jim Dower: #11 WBC Dominic Breazeale (18-1, 16 KOs) is targeting a title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (38-0, 27 KOs) after surviving a grueling fight against #9 IBF #10 WBO Izuagbe Ugonoh (17-1, 14 KOs) last Saturday night at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.

Breazeale says he wants to fight Wilder. Whether he gets the title shot is another thing. Breazeale isn’t high enough to force a fight against Wilder, and it’s not likely that he’s going to get picked out by him or his management for a fight.

Wilder beat Gerald Washington by a 5th round knockout last Saturday on the same card. That was Wilder’s fifth voluntary title defense. Wilder wants to fight a unification bout against WBO heavyweight champion.

Breazeale had to reach deep to defeat Ugonoh by a 5th round knockout. Breazeale was on the floor in round 4 after getting hit hard by Ugonoh. Breazeale’s left eye looked in bad shape going into the 5th. However, Breazeale battered Ugonoh in the round in dropping him tice to get the knockout win.

“It was good,” said Breazeale to Thaboxingvoice.com about Wilder’s win over Gerald Washington last Saturday night. “I thought Deontay had a slow start. It’s great it came out [alright]. I was expecting a lot more from him. Washington had a phenomenal jab. If I get a shot like that, it’s going to be a hard fought fight. You’ve got to hard heart to be in this game,” said Breazeale.

When asked if he’d fight Wilder if the option were given to him, Breazeale said, “Of course.”
What works against Breazeale getting a title shot against Wilder is the fact that he was knocked out in the 7th round by IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua last June. Breazeale has only fought once since that loss in beating Ugonoh. Breazeale needs to get more distance behind his loss to Joshua by putting together some additional wins.

It was nice that Breazeale defeated Ugonoh in what is perhaps the most exciting fight of the year in 2017 thus far, but he’s probably going to need to win more than one fight for him to get another world title shot. It’s not exactly fair to the other contenders in the World Boxing Council’s top 15 rankings if Breazeale keeps getting title shots over and over again.

Breazeale showed a good chin in taking the big power shots from Ugonoh. Some of the punches that the 263 pound Breazeale took last Saturday would have knocked out many heavyweights in the division. However, if Ugonoh hadn’t faded after round 4, Breazeale would have been in trouble. Ugonoh was getting the better of him in most of the rounds except when he got caught by a shot in round 3 and knocked down.

Breazeale vs. Wilder is a fight that Premier Boxing Champions would likely be interested in making for one of the free channels like Fox, but a unification fight against Parker is the better fight. Breazeale is talking about his trainer wanting him to take five months off to rest after the Ugonoh fight.

Wilder isn’t going to wait around for five months for a fight against a simple contender like Breazeale. For that reason, Breazeale is likely going to need to keep winning and hope that he can get moved up in the WBC’s rankings so that he can get a title shot against the winner of the Wilder-Parker fight.