By Jim Dower: Heavyweight Olympic Bronze Medalist Deontay Wilder (6-0, 6 KO’s) will be fighting tonight against Travis Allen (3-4, 3 KO’s) at the Desert Diamond Casino, in Tucson, Arizona. Wilder, 23, perhaps the hardest puncher in the heavyweight division at this time, will be making his seventh pro appearance since turning professional last year in November.
Tall and wiry at 6’7” 215, Wilder has a cannon for a right hand and has been winning with pretty much that one big punch alone in his six prior fights in the pros. Wilder’s handlers are trying to teach him to use his left hand more and develop a jab, but it will take more time to develop these skills.
As it is, Wilder’s right hand is so good that his opponents are unable to stand in with him for long without getting slaughtered. Even if Wilder never does develop any other weapons in his toolkit, his right hand is probably good enough to beat any of the top contenders in the heavyweight division. Wilder’s only probably would be dealing with the Klitschko brothers, but Wilder still has a lot of time before he gets thrown in with either of the two huge Ukrainian champions.
To show you how powerful Wilder’s right hand is, he’s knocked out his last five opponents in the 1st round, making quick work of each of them. In Wilder’s last fight, a 1st round knockout over Kelsey Arnold in June, Wilder dropped Arnold with a tremendous right hand that sent him down where the fight was immediately stopped at 1:13 of the round.
What was different about this fight from the other five bouts of Wilder, was that he used his jab much more and even threw a couple of left hooks. The jab worked well with Wilder’s bazooka right hand and had Arnold in all kinds of trouble from the opening bell.
Tonight’s bout will be shown on Friday Night Fights.
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Cotto Willing to Fight for the Diamond belt
WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto is willing to fight for the new Diamond WBC belt against Manny Pacquiao on November 14th, according to Primera Hora. The belt was recently a new creation by the WBC to be used for elite fighters in catch weight bouts like Cotto’s fight against Pacquiao, which will be taking place at 145 instead of the normal welterweight limit of 147.
Until recently, Cotto had been reluctant to put his WBO title on the line because of the fight taking place at a catch weight. Cotto has since changed his mind on the subject, and will reportedly be putting the WBO title on the line.
It’s unknown why Cotto would want the Diamond title to be on the line if his WBO belt is already being fought over, because it would seem that an additional belt like the Diamond strap, would mean an extra sanctioning fee that he’d have to pay out for the fight. Unless Cotto’s promoter Bob Arum is willing to foot the bill of the Diamond belt, I have serious reservations about Cotto wanting to pay an extra sanctioning fee for a newly created belt like the Diamond.
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