Deontay Wilder: Eric Molina is not going to make history against me

By Boxing News - 06/04/2015 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: The hard hitting #9 WBC challenger Eric Molina (23-2, 17 KOs) is thinking upset when he faces WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) in nine days from now in their fight on Showtime Championship Boxing on June 13th at the Bartow Arena, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Deontay, 6’7”, wants to realize his glory by unifying all the heavyweight world titles by beating IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko next year, and holding onto the belts for a long, long time without getting beaten. But on June 13th, Wilder has an obstacle standing in the way of him realizing his dream in the form of the 6’4” power puncher Molina, and Wilder isn’t going to let the tough Mexican American ruin his plans.

“He [Molina] wants to make history, but he’s not making history on me,” Wilder said. “He’s not going to come to my hometown; he’s not going to come from where I live and be victorious. My dream is to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, and I won’t stop until I accomplish my goals in boxing,” Wilder said.

Molina is going to have to bring his A-game and hope that Wilder has an off night on June 13th for him to have a chance of pulling off the big upset. To be sure, Molina has the kind of punching power that can KO anyone in the division if he lands his shots enough times, but I have a feeling that Wilder is going to get to him first with one of his tremendous right hands, and Molina will wind up folding early.

I think it’ll be a moral victory for Molina if he even escapes the 1st round against Deontay. That’s not because Molina isn’t a good fighter, because he certainly is very good. It’s because Deontay is just such a huge puncher, and that makes it nearly impossible for his opposition to make it out of the early rounds without them hitting the deck.

Bermane Stiverne took Wilder’s best shots and make it through the full 12 rounds to lose by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last January. But that was also a fight in which Wilder suffered a broken right hand in the 4th round, and wasn’t able to tee off on Stiverne with everything he had. If Wilder’s right hand hadn’t broke, I think it would been very difficult for Stiverne to take his big right hand shots for the full 12 rounds without him getting knocked out.

What’s interesting about Wilder is he only weighs around 220, and yet he’s able to get tremendous power on his shots. He uses his leverage to create power that other heavyweights can only dream about. In contrast, you’ve got a 248lb heavyweight like Anthony Joshua, who doesn’t get nearly the same kind of punching power on his shots or speed despite him weighing 30 pounds more than Wilder.

It shows you that power doesn’t come from muscles and weighing in the 250s. You either have the power or you don’t. You can’t get the kind of power that Wilder has from lifting weights and putting on a lot of useless muscle weight.



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