By Scott Gilfoid: This Saturday night the boxing world will have the pleasure of seeing WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) defend his WBC title against the capable #8 WBC replacement opponent Gerald Washington (18-0-1, 12 KOs) on PBC on Fox TV at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.
This is going to be a battle of the big men with two 6’7” heavyweights in Wilder and Washington throwing bombs at each other for as long as it lasts. Wilder’s choice of the giant-sized Washington is a good warm-up for him for what he’ll be facing when he gets inside the ring with the 6’6”, 250 lb. Anthony Joshua.
The Wilder vs. Joshua fight could take place in late 2017 or in 2018. It depends on whether Joshua gets past Wladimir Klitschko on April 29 and whether he his promoter Eddie Hearn fancy the fight. It doesn’t matter. Wilder and Joshua will be facing each other at some point in the near future regardless of what happens in their next fights.
Despite not having the amateur boxing career that Wilder was blessed with, Washington has been dominating his opposition on size alone since he turned pro in 2012. Washington uses his long reach and jab to dominate his shorter opponents. He’s only had one competitive fight in his career, and that was against Amir Mansour in 2015. That was a hard fight for Washington at the time, because he came into the contest with just 15 fights under his belt. Being put into the ring against an accomplished pro with the kind of punching power that Mansour possesses was like being thrown into the deep end of the pool without having any lessons in swimming.
To Washington’s credit, he fought Mansour to a standstill and came out of the fight with a draw. If the same fight was presented to Washington now, he likely would win due to his experience. At the time, it was a big jump up in competition for Washington to be matches against the 43-year-old Mansour. Washington has since beaten Eddie Chambers and Ray Austin. Chambers is a former world title challenger, and a very good fighter.
Washington used his boxing skills to dominate Chambers from the outside in beating him by an 8 round unanimous decision last year in April 2016. It was a good performance by Washington. He beat Chambers by the scores 80-72, 80-72 and 79-72. In Washington’s last fight, he showed off his punching power in stopping Austin in the 4th round last July. Austin has a good chin and has only been knocked out five times in his 19-year pro career.
“About to take care of some business February 25th on FoxTV Prime Time! #PBConFox #Wilder-Washington,” said Wilder on his Twitter.
The Wilder vs. Washington fight start time is at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00pm PT this Saturday on Premier Boxing Champions live on Fox.
Wilder’s hand speed and punching power will be the difference in this fight against Washington. While both guys are roughly the same size, Wilder is so much faster and more powerful than Washington. It’s going to be apparent to the boxing fans from round 1 who the better fighter is of the two.
The 250 lb. Washington is making a big deal about him being 20 pounds heavier than Wilder, as if it will help him win the fight. Being bigger means something if you have hand speed and a punching power advantage, but Washington won’t have that going for him in this fight. That’s bad news for him. Wilder is the much bigger puncher with scorching hand speed. Washington is going to have a lot of big right hands from Wilder bounced off his chin in this fight, and I can’t see him being able to take too many of those shots without dropping to the canvas. If the 31-year-old Wilder does stop Washington, it’ll be his 37th knockout of his still young 9-year pro career.
Where to see the Wilder-Washington is at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama or on Fox.
There’s a nice co-feature bout between Jarrett Hurd (19-0, 13 KOs) and Tony Harrison (24-1, 20 KOs). The two fighters will be fighting for the vacant International Boxing Federation junior middleweight title. This is the title that was vacated last week by Jermall Charlo, who is moving up to the middleweight division.
The 26-year-old Harrison is a good fighter, but he was kind of exposed by Willie Nelson in losing to him by a 0th round knockout on July 11, 2015. Nelson had too much power for Harrison. It was competitive at first until Nelson’s power took over for him. Since that fight, Harrison has won his last three matches in beating Cecil McCalla, Fernando Guerrero and Siarhei Rabchanka. Harrison hasn’t beaten anyone good recently, and you can argue that Hurd should be facing #9 IBF Julian “J-Rock” Williams for the vacant IBF title instead of Harrison. That’s not to say that Harrison is a bad fighter, but his loss to journeyman Willie Nelson kind of shows that he’s not qualified to be fighting for a world title right now. Julian Williams was knocked out by Jermall Charlo in the 5th round recently, but he was facing a very talented fighter. There’s a big difference in losing to Jermall Charlo compared to losing to Willie Nelson. I’m just saying.
I expect Hurd to do a number on Harrison and stop him just like Nelson did. Harrison will likely be competitive in the first half of the first half of the fight on Saturday night, but then Hurd’s high volume punching and power will take over. I can see Hurd stopping Harrison by the 7th or 8t round.
Also on the card is former heavyweight world title challenger Dominic Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs) facing a very dangerous Izuagbe Ugonoh (17-0, 14 KOs0 in a 10 round fight. The 31-year-old Breazeale was knocked out in the 7th round by IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on June 25 last year at the O2 Arena in London, England. The 6’7” Breazeale gave it a good effort in trying to beat Joshua, but at the end of the night, he simply didn’t have the punching power or the right game plan to get the job done.
The way to beat Joshua is to attack him the way Mihai Nistor did in 2011. What we saw from Breazeale was him just standing around taking shots. It was a poor game plan. It looked like Breazeale was trying to let Joshua tire himself out by punching him. That was never going to work. The way to tire Joshua out is to attack him constantly the way Nistor, Erislandy Savon, Ivan Dychko and Roberto Cammarelle all did. Joshua seems to get stressed when attacked, and uses up energy quickly. The 30-year-old Ugonoh is coming off of a 2nd round knockout of Gregory Tony on October 1 last year. Ugonoh has been knocking out almost everyone he’s faced. He’s knocked out his last five opponents since 2015. Ugonoh has been a pro for almost as long as Wilder. It’s unclear why he hasn’t progressed further than he has. Ugonoh’s management is moving him slowly upwards. It’s good that Ugonoh is facing Breazeale, because that should give the boxing fans a good idea of where he stands. If he can blast out Breazeale as easily as Joshua, then he could be soon a major player in the heavyweight division.