By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten heavyweight Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) entered the 30 knockout club last night with his blasting out of game Nicolai Firtha (21-11-1, 8 KO’s) in four rounds at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was a very impressive performance from the 6’7″ Deontay with him knocked Firtha down three times with some beautiful shots to the head. The punches that Firtha got up from would have surely knocked out a lesser heavyweight.
With this victory, Deontay’s promoter Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions is eying the WBC heavyweight title currently held by Vitali Klitschko. Schaefer expects that belt to be freed up now in early 2014 now that Vitali has announced that he’s going to run for the president of Ukraine. Surely Vitali won’t have to time to stop campaigning for two-three months in order to get ready for what would be a dangerous title defense against the 34-year-old Bermane Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KO’s). As such, Schaefer will be looking to match Deontay against Stiverne for the vacant WBC title once Vitali vacates or is stripped of the title for failing to defend it.
Schaefer said this via Fightnews “I anticipate he [Vitali] will no longer fight and that the title will become vacant. My goal is to have Deontay fight in his next fight for the WBC heavyweight championship against Bermane Stiverne. And after that go for Wladimir Klitschko, unify all the titles and have an undisputed champion.”
I think Wladimir will definitely look to face Deontay if he can capture the WBC title after beating Stiverne. That will set up a huge ‘Fight of the giants’ type of a bout between the 6’7″ Deontay and the 6’6″ Wladimir. It’ll be the first real heavyweight title shot in perhaps decade or more. It’s been incredibly long since a world heavyweight champion actually fought a good opponent instead of a stiff or a short fighter without the size or the weight to even be fighting at the heavyweight level in the first place.
If Deontay is able to stop Wladimir, you can bet that Vitali might come out of retirement or whatever he’s in to try and avenge Wladimir’s loss. No way do I see Wladimir electing to fight Deontay a second time if he gets starched the first time. That’s not been Wladimir’s style. He either moves on like he did when he was stopped by Corrie Sanders and Ross Puritty, or he faces his former conqueror years down the line when things aren’t going so well with them, such as Lamon Brewster when he was coming off of a year layoff follwing eye surgery.
Deontay will have a huge height and reach advantage over the 6’2″ Stiverne. I don’t even think Stiverne is 6’2″. I think he’s closer to 6’0″, and he would be giving up at least seven inches in height and around the same amount in reach. Deontay could then pick him apart with his jab if he wished. I was really impressed with Deontay’s jabs from last night. That punch has become a major weapon for him, as well as his left hook and uppercut. I saw some nice jabs, left hooks, uppercuts and even some nifty inside work by Deontay. He had the whole package last night and I’m sure there was even more in his toolbox that he didn’t get a chance to put on display.