By Scott Gilfoid: There’s less than one month to go before the important clash between WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and the unbeaten #1 WBC knockout artist Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) on January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Stephen Espinoza, the Vice President of Sports for Showtime, says there is a high ticket demand from the media for this fight. If the media is incredibly interested in this fight then the boxing fans are too.
Believe me, this is a big deal for many fans because it’s an opportunity for Deontay to bring the heavyweight title back to America where it’s been missing for many years. If Deontay beats Stiverne, it’ll be a big deal in the U.S.
“It’s been quite a while to see the kind of media ticket demand that we’ve seen over the last few days other than a Floyd Mayweather fight,” said Espinoza via RingTV.com. “That’s the only other time that I can really compare it to. So the heavyweights are definitely back and people are happy to hear it.”
The heavyweight division has largely been forgotten about in America in the last seven years because there’s been no champions during that time. In the past, the heavyweights were the ones that attracted the most interest in America and they were the ones that pulled in the fans. Things have changed dramatically over the years with the welterweights like Floyd Mayweather Jr becoming the biggest star in American boxing.
It’s not likely that Stiverne vs. Wilder will sellout the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. At best, we’re probably talking about perhaps the fight selling out half of the arena if that, but we’re still talking good numbers for a heavyweight clash considering that Deontay hasn’t won the heavyweight world title yet. But you can expect that to change if he’s able to beat Stiverne and take his title. If Deontay is able to score a knockout against Stiverne, and then subsequently knockout Bryant Jennings and then Wladimir Klitschko, then we could see the audiences for Deontay’s fights to increase rapidly.
This fight isn’t going to be a cakewalk for Deontay. After all, Stiverne has excellent power, a nice jab, and powerful left counter that he likes to throw. We don’t know yet how Deontay will react to getting hit hard if Stiverne is able to connect with any of his hard shots. You’ve got figure that the bigger, taller and much faster Deontay will land his right hand first well ahead of any power shots that Stiverne lands in the fight. For that reason it’s going to come down to whether Stiverne can handle getting hit by Deontay’s right hand at full power a half dozen times before Stiverne gets the opportunity to land his first hard shot.
If Stiverne’s chin can’t handle getting hit by Deontay’s best right hands then this fight is going to be over in the 1st round. Stiverne is a good fighter, but his chin is likely no better than Deontay’s past opponents Malik Scott and Sergei Liakhovich. Stiverne will obviously need to fight defensively in the early going because if Deontay is able to tee off on him then this fight will end in lightning fashion.
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