(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda)By Scott Gilfoid: At his grand arrival earlier Tuesday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, heavyweight knockout artist Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) promised that his fight against WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) this Saturday night on Showtime will be giving boxing fans their money’s worth when the two punchers step inside the ring to start slugging it out in front of what will should be a huge Showtime audience.
“Here me now. Yall about to get your money’s worth on Saturday. The wait is over,” Deontay Said.
This fight is going to produce a knockout one way or another. Of the two, the 6’7” Wilder has the best chance to score the knockout due to his great power, speed, size, athleticism and youth. Stiverne really doesn’t have much in this fight other than a chin, and even that isn’t the greatest in the business.
If Stiverne’s chin was made out of iron, he wouldn’t have fallen apart under the fire from journeyman Demetrius King in 2007. Stiverne was blasted out in four rounds in that fight.
The chances are high that the fight will be over by the 4th round on Saturday night. I mean, Deontay has never gone past the 4th round in any of his 32 fights, and it appears that there isn’t a heavyweight in the division that can handle Wilder’s Foreman-like power if he lands flush. He’s not a heavily built fighter like some of the heavyweights like Stiverne, but Deontay gets a lot of leverage on his shots and that in turn produces power that other heavyweights can only dream about.
When you have a 6’7” heavyweight putting his entire body behind his shots, it produces power that makes it almost possible for another fighter to take those kinds of vicious shots. If the fight goes past the 4th, I can only see that happening if Stiverne runs from Deontay to keep from getting poleaxed.
We don’t know what Stiverne’s plan of attack is in this fight because he’s kept it quiet, as if he’s got a great secret that he’s keeping. In reality, Stiverne can only try a view variations of what he’s always done, so it’s not as if he’s going to come out with something brand new for this fight. He can play possum against the ropes like he did in both of his fights against Chris Arreola and look to land left hand counters, he can try and come forward to go on the attack against Deontay, or he can move in circles to run from him while pumping out jabs.
I see Stiverne falling back into his same old trap of fighting with his back against the ropes if only because he doesn’t have the stamina to carry his huge 240+ frame around the ring for 12 rounds without getting tired.
Stiverne fights off the ropes out of necessity rather than by plan. He doesn’t have the leg strength and stamina to keep off the ropes, so you’ll always find him there leaning against them to support his bulky upper body. The thing is if he fights like that against Deontay, he’ll get smashed apart within 4 rounds.
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