(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (33-0, 32 KOs) says that #9 WBC Eric Molina (23-2, 17 KOs) will be stepping inside the ring with a monster tonight when he gets in the ring with him in their fight on Showtime Championship Boxing. Wilder thinks this is a level that the 33-year-old Molina has never been on before.
It’s hard to disagree with Wilder because the best guy that Molina has faced in his eight year pro career is Chris Arreola, who blew him out in one round in their fight in 2012.
Since Arreola isn’t on the same level as Wilder, you can see what kind of troubles Molina will be having tonight.
“I’m here for a long time until I decide to retire,” Wilder said. “I want to see how he reacts when he gets inside the ring with a monster. This is a level where he’s never been on. This is a stage he’s never been on.”
Molina will need to something completely unexpected tonight for him to have a chance of winning the fight. The thing is Wilder is going to be ready for anything that Molina can do in the ring. About the only thing unexpected that Molina can do is to back off completely and flat out run from Wilder for nine or ten rounds to try and get him in the late rounds of the fight.
I don’t think Wilder would expect that kind of tactic from Molina, because he’s never ran from an opponent before. With Molina weighing 241 at the weigh-in on Friday, and looking rather flabby around the sides of his waist. With that kind of flab, I just don’t think Molina is going to be able to run too far before Wilder connects with one of his long right hands to the head.
Sometimes fighters can do well even when they step up to a level where they’ve never fought before. I don’t think Molina is going to be one of those guys that can fight well against a talent like Wilder. If the 6’5” Molina was fighting a small heavyweight champion like Ruslan Chagaev, I would give him a decent chance of getting the victory over Chagaev. But he’s not fighting a small guy unfortunately for him.
Molina is fighting the 6’7” Deontay, who dwarfed him during their weigh-in last Friday. Wilder was clearly the taller guy with the longer arms. It’s going to be really tough for Molina to anything from the outside because Wilder will control the action at a distance. Molina will need to walk through a rain of big power punches if he wants to get near enough to Wilder to land his shorter shots.
The Wilder-Molina fight will take place tonight at the Bartow Arena, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. This is a venue that Wilder wanted, as he’s from Alabama, and he wanted to be able to defend his title in front of his fans.
For Wilder’s next defense, he’ll likely be defending his WBC title in Russia against challenger Alexander Povetkin unless Wilder’s promoter can win the purse bid to have the fight staged in the U.S.
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