(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight world champion Evander Holyfield is giving unbeaten American talent Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) a good shot at beating WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) on Saturday night as long as the 6’7” Deontay stays on the outside and uses his huge height and reach advantage to keep the shorter, heavily built Stiverne at the end of his punches.
Above all, Deontay can’t let the 6’2” Stiverne to get inside of his reach because he’ll then open himself up to getting hit by the hard hitting Canadian fighters’ best power punches.
“You’ve got two guys, one who just became the champion, and styles make fights. It could come down to range,” said Holyfield via RingTV.com. “If this guy, Stiverne, can’t get close enough to Deontay Wilder, then it could be tough and he ain’t going to be able to get to Deontay and hurt him.”
It’s so true what Holyfield says. Deontay could wind up dominating Stiverne in the same way that Wladimir Klitschko has been dominating his opposition for the last 10 years as long as he keeps him on the outside and doesn’t let him get close to land anything. That of course means that Deontay will need to back up immediately each time Stiverne tries to come forward to land his shots. He can’t let Stiverne force his way to the inside the way he likes to do against his taller opponents.
In addition to that, Deontay needs to use movement to remain elusive so that he doesn’t get cornered by Stiverne. Backing up against Stiverne won’t be enough. Deontay will need to move around the ring while pumping out his long jab to pepper Stiverne and close both his eyes with his shots. Once Stiverne’s eyes are swollen to the point where he’s nearly blind, then Deontay can finish him off with the coup de grace right hand to the head.
“This guy, Bermane Stiverne is a rugged guy who is going to try to get inside any type of way that he can but if the fight is quick, then I think that it’s going to favor Deontay. But Deontay has never gone beyond four rounds,” Holyfield said.
It’s definitely true that if it’s a quick fight it favors Deontay. He’s the much faster fighter and a lot more ferocious in the early going. Stiverne pretty much fights like he’s half asleep in the ring during the early rounds, as he’s always looking for that left hook to bail him out in rounds. He doesn’t work hard in the ring, but rather he just waits on one big punch while letting his opponents do all the work.
That’s obviously going to be a bad thing for Stiverne against a puncher like Deontay because he’ll have numerous opportunities to lance the 36-year-old Stiverne with right hand head shots. I know Stiverne supposedly has a good chin, but there are only so many shots a guy can take from a puncher like Deontay before they drop for the 10 count. Even if Deontay doesn’t score a quick KO in the first four rounds, Stiverne’s head is going to be on fire from the shots he’s forced to eat from Deontay if he keeps getting nailed.
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