By Scott Gilfoid: Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) will be on a mission tonight when he gets inside the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deontay will be looking to shut the yaps of the haters and critics that have doubted him all these years and sold him short when he looks to snatch the title away from WBC heavyweight belt holder Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs).
With a win over Stiverne, Deontay will get the last laugh over his critics, because the victory will raise Deontay’s profile considerably and likely lead to him becoming a millionaire by his next fight.
A knockout win by Deontay over Stiverne will almost surely lead to product endorsement offers for the 6’7” Deontay in the U.S, as this is the first heavyweight champion America has seen since Shannon Briggs won the WBO belt in 2006.
“I think this is definitely my chance now to shut the critics up, the naysayers, the haters, the non-believers, the a*******, the d******** or whatever you want to call them – I’m ready to shut them all up,” Wilder said via the Dailymail.co.uk.
Indeed, Deontay will definitely be shutting the mouths of the critics, at least a good portion of them. Deontay expects the last remaining critics to then pronounce Stiverne as a bum in order to discredit his victory over him.
“I made the impossible possible by knocking them out when I wasn’t supposed to do it, and now they suddenly became bums, so we’ll see on Saturday if he is a true test,” Deontay said.
Rest assured, Stiverne will likely be called a bum by a lot of boxing fans if Deontay is able to score a quick knockout tonight. That’s kind of par for the course. Since Deontay isn’t expected to win this fight in the minds of some boxing fans, they’ll have a hard time wrapping their teeth around a quick victory by Deontay and the kneejerk reaction we’ll see is Stiverne being called a bum instead of Deontay being seen as a gifted heavyweight.
The real proving ground for Deontay will come later when he’s matched against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, and when he defends his WBC title against talents like Alexander Povetkin, Bryant Jennings, Carlos Takam, Mike Perez and Kubrat Pulev. Those are a tough bunch of heavyweights, and if Deontay can get past all of those guys without losing his WBC belt, we’re talking about him being on his way to massive riches.
Wilder would like to get to the 50-0 mark with 50 knockouts. That would a great accomplishment for the future. Whether he can get to that level will depend on if he keeps developing his game to become more of a boxer/puncher rather than a straight puncher like he is now.
Thus far, Deontay has been showing only one side of his game in terms of him displaying his awesome punching power in each of his fights. But as he moves up the food chain and starts facing better heavyweights, he’s going to need to start displaying his boxing ability in order to get those victories, because those guys will go into a shell and try and ride out Deontay’s attacks. For Deontay to beat those guys, he’ll need to use his jab, movement and defensive skills.
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