By Steven Ocallaghan: On Saturday 20th of April in probably the famous garden since Eden, unbeaten heavyweight Tyson Fury 20-0 takes on American Steve “USS” Cunningham (25-5) at Madison Square Garden for the right to fight #1 IBF contender Kubrat Pulev 17-0 to be named mandatory challenger to IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitchko.
I fully expect Fury to beat Cunningham but it won’t be easy. Cunningham has lost 5 times, all on points except one when in a close fight it was stopped early by an accidental head-butt with Cunningham slightly down on the score cards.
As far as other contenders go, David Price 15-0 takes on former 2 times title challenger Tony Thompson tonight, a fight I fully expect Price to win. Manuel Charr had another stoppage win to move him to 23-1 now and could gain another title shot.
Bryant Jennings 16-0 and Chris Arreola 35-2 are in the mix as well as Robert Helenius 18-0, Bermaine Stiverne 22-1. An outsider for me is Magomed Abdusalamov 16-0. Abdusalamov has great punching power, but is just to keen at the minute. Once he learns to calm down he will be in the mix too.
Chris Arreola and Bernane Stiverne face off in a WBC final eliminator on March 9th in California, and these are the fights the paying public want.
A name that keeps on being thrown out there is WBC 9 Deontay Wilder 27-0 but I have yet to see him fight anybody of note. How he got the 9 ranking quite frankly baffles me as his highest ranked opponent so far has been Kelvin Price and he was ranked about 80.
Some writers down-cry the quality of opponents that the British Heavyweights are taking on but Tony Thompson’s last fight was against Wladimir Klitschko where as Deontay Wilder’s last opponent Matt Greer faced off against a 272lb 5’10” 41 year old fighter called Jason Nicholson who has lost 13 of his last 15.
Nicholson and Greer are the type of fighter that Wilder has been fed on all his career and at 27-0 , you would think he would be moving forward.
All of the above contenders with the exception of Chris Arreola have had less fights than Wilder and are by far more respected in the boxing world. I really don’t think GBP know what to do with him. Yes he is tall and rangy with good power, but can you say he hits harder than someone like David Price and god help him if Wlad cherry picks him for a safe defense.
There are a lot of up and coming pretenders to the throne and it’s refreshing to hear that Tyson Fury, if he takes care of Cunningham, which I think he will, wants to face the tough Pulev. A lot of good fights to be made but I don’t see the lanky Wilder being in any of them. In the Kelvin Price fight even his own fans were booing, they have no interest in a fighter who acts like the school bully, knowing he only picks fights against guys he knows he can beat. That is why it will be a very long time before you see him fight any of the contenders named above.
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