(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Jim Dower: American Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) was taken the distance for the first time in his career in pounding out an impressive 12 round unanimous decision over WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-2-1, 21 KOs) to capture the WBC heavyweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 119-108 and 120-107.
Deontay hurt Stiverne several times in the fight with huge right hands, especially in the 7th when he had Stiverne ready to go after hurting him with a right hand.
Stiverne took some tremendous shots tonight that would have knocked out a normal heavyweight.
All in all, it was a good performance from Wilder. He showed that he can go 12 rounds, and that he could take a big punch. Stiverne tagged Wilder with some really hard left hooks in the fight, and Wilder had little problem taking them. The shots that Wilder landed against Stiverne were pretty brutal, and you got to give Stiverne a ton of credit for taking those punches. They were very hard punches.
After the fight, Stiverne’s face was badly bruised and he looked beaten. He didn’t give Wilder much credit though for his performance. Instead, he blamed his loss on not being ready physically for the fight.
“It wasn’t my night. I didn’t feel 100 percent,” Stiverne said. “I just felt like I was flat in the ring. That wasn’t me at all. I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do. Mentally I was ready but physically it was a different scenario.”
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In a tougher than expected fight, WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (29-0-1, 17 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a grueling 8th round stoppage win over challenger Jesus Ruiz (32-6-5, 21 KOs).
Santa Cruz, 26, hurt a tired Ruiz with a right hand in the 8th. Santa Cruz then flurried on a hurt Ruiz while he was trapped against the ropes until referee Kenny Bayless halted the fight at 0:29 of the round.
Ruiz was hurt late in the 7th from a right hand that backed him up against the ropes briefly. Santa Cruz was pounding Ruiz as the round ended. It was pretty clear at the time that Ruiz wouldn’t last much longer.
Santa Cruz is going to need to fight a lot better than this if he wants to beat Abner Mares or Guillermo Rigondeaux, two fighters that he’s been speaking about wanting to fight next. Santa Cruz was too slow and easy to hit tonight against Ruiz, and he likely would be worked over by Mares or Rigondeaux.
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Other boxing results on the card:
Amir Imam TKO 5 Fidel Maldonado Jr
Vyacheslav Shabranskyy RTD 9 Garrett Wilson
Eric Molina TKO 8 Raphael Zumbano Love
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