By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) potentially is going to have a lot of problems next month in his title defense against the much taller knockout artist Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) on January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While the 36-year-old Stiverne is a good counter puncher with excellent power, he has a nasty habit of keeping his left arm down by his side the way that the lightning fast Roy Jones Jr did in his prime.
The problem with that is causes Stiverne to get hit with a lot of lead right hands when he faces quality opposition. If you look at Stiverne’s two fights against the slow as molasses Chris Arreola, we saw the 6’2” Stiverne getting repeatedly hit by Arreola’s lead right hands, as well as his left hooks.
Luckily for Stiverne, Arreola isn’t a big puncher, because if he was he would have had Stiverne in big trouble. Arreola has decent power, but he’s more of a heavyweight who bludgeon’s his opponents into submission with combinations rather than one big shot.
With the 6’7” Deontay Wilder, he has very fast hands and a huge right hand that can knockout anyone in the division if he lands it flush. Stiverne is going to give Deontay plenty of opportunities to land his power shots on January 17th if he’s incapable of keeping his left hand up.
I’m sure Stiverne’s trainer has told him to make sure he keeps his left hand up by his chin to guard against Deontay’s right hands, and I’m sure he’s also been told to stay off the ropes. But Stiverne doesn’t seem capable of keeping his left hand up.
He’s one of those fighters who likely gets arm weary if he’s forced to keep his arms up by his chin, so he tends to keep his hands down by his waist rather than by his head. Against a huge puncher like Deontay, Stiverne is likely going to pay badly for keeping his left hand down by his sides.
This isn’t Arreola or Ray Austin that Stiverne will be facing next month. It’s Deontay Wilder, who arguably has the best punching power in the heavyweight division.
If Stivernes comes out in the 1st round with his left hand by his waist, we could very well see Stiverne knocked out in the 1st round after catching 4 or 5 hard right hands to the head from Deontay.
Stiverne will make it even easier for Deontay if he resorts to his bad habit of backing up against the ropes and just covering up like a sparring partner. Stiverne does this because he likes to try and land his counter shots after his opponents nail him in the head or on the gloves.
The thing is if Stiverne does that against Deontay, he could get hurt even if Deontay hits him on the gloves because he’s throwing his right hand with so much power that the force of the blow travels through his opponent’s glove to their head. Additionally, Deontay tends to throw looping right hands that land to the side of his opponent’s heads when they’re covering up with both hands.
If you look at Deontay’s fight against Sergei Liakhovich in 2013, you’ll see that Deontay’s right hand went around Liakhovich’s gloves to nail him on the side of the head and knock him out. We could very well see the same thing with Stiverne if he backs up to the ropes and tries playing possum there.
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