(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Fighting in front of a large crowd of 8,300 fans at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) put on a right hand power punching clinic in thrashing WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-2-1, 21 KOs) in winning an impressive 12 round unanimous decision tonight. The win for the talented Wilder makes him the first American heavyweight champion since Shannon Briggs did it in 2006.
Yeah, Stiverne went the distance with Deontay tonight, but it wasn’t pretty to see Stiverne getting hit with so many huge shots to the head. I mean, Stiverne was staggering around the ring in the 2nd and 7th rounds after getting clipped by some big punches from Deontay.
I don’t know how Stiverne survived those rounds because he really took a terrible beating. I don’t know of any other heavyweight in the division that would have been able to take Deontay’s power shots tonight. Stiverne took them, but I bet he felt terrible.
It was quite a performance from the young Deontay, as he pounded the stuffing out of Stiverne for 12 long rounds. Stiverne’s face was bruised and lumpy afterwards, showing the terrible punishment that he took in the fight.
Stiverne fought well enough two win two or three rounds at best, but that was only because Deontay took some of the rounds off after having punished Stiverne. The judges scored it 118-109, 119-108, 120-107. Those were pretty fair scores as far as I’m concerned. You couldn’t really give Stiverne more than a few rounds because he was constantly getting nailed by jabs and right hands to the head.
I was really impressed with Deontay’s jab. Before tonight, I never seen him throw his jab as much and with so much power. He really developed it since his last fight against Jason Gavern. Deontay’s jab is now a weapon and almost as good as Wladimir Klitschko’s.
Deontay used his jab a lot tonight to keep the shorter 6’2” Stiverne from being able to get close enough to land consistently. Stiverne’s lack of height and reach was really exposed tonight by Deontay, because Stiverne couldn’t get close enough to land his shots. He was missing badly and looking desperate in trying to connect with his big left hooks.
Stiverne was trying to time Deontay much of the time to try and connect with his left hooks. The problem was that Deontay’s right hands were so fast and powerful that Stiverne would get hit with them, and he couldn’t come back with his left hooks because the shots were so jarring. Many of Deontay’s right hands knocked Stiverne backwards from the force of the blows.
Deontay hurt Stiverne in the 2nd, 5 and 8th with big rights to the head. I mean, Deontay actually had Stiverne hurt more than that in the fight, but those were the worst rounds for Stiverne.
For the most part, Deontay was satisfied to dominate at a distance with his right hands and jabs. But even on the inside, Deontay looked superior to Stiverne in connecting with short uppercuts. It was pretty surprising.
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