By Scott Gilfoid: The August 16th Shawn Porter vs. Kell Brook Showtime fight card just got a lot better with #1 WBC heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (31-0, KOs) added to it to beef it up. Lightweight contender Jorge Linares (36-3, 23 KOs) has also been added to the card against an opponent still to be determined, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. It’s unknown if the Deontay and Linares fights will make it onto the Showtime broadcast. They already have three good fights on the card that are scheduled to be televised.
Deontay, 6’7″, is waiting for a title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne for later on this year, but now that Stiverne has a hand injury, it’s unknown when that fight will happen. Deontay, his adviser Al Haymon and Golden Boy Promotions don’t want to let him sit back and get rusty waiting for Stiverne’s injured hand to heal.
With an injury like that, it’s quite possible that it might take until 2015 to heal up. In that case, one would hope that the World Boxing Council does the right thing in giving Stiverne the old emeritus champion in recess title that they give to injured fighters that can’t defend their titles in a timely fashion. The last thing that the boxing world needs is another heavyweight champion that sits on his title for over a year without defending it due to injuries, like we saw with former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko.
There’s no word about who Deontay will be facing as of yet, but it’s likely to be a good solid 2nd tier guy that can be pulled in at the last second. Deontay has got the talent to take on a top level fighter like Alexander Ustinov if need be, but it’s not likely that Golden Boy or Haymon would want to have him fighting a guy that he’d not prepared for. It would be a great fight though to have two 6’7″ giant heavyweights throwing bombs at each other. It would give the boxing world a chance to see the difference between Deontay and Kubrat Pulev. It took Pulev 11 rounds to stop Ustinov in 2012, when Ustinov wasn’t as in shape as he is now.
Deontay hasn’t fought since he blew away Malik Scott by 1st round knockout last
Linares hasn’t fought since last March when he defeated Nihito Arakawa by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision. He looked good in that fight and showed excellent power even though he didn’t get the KO.
Also on the Porter-Brook card are the following fights:
Sakio Bika vs. Anthony Dirrell
Omar Figueroa vs. Daniel Estrada
Luke Campbell vs. TBA
Callum Smith vs. TBA
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