By Scott Gilfoid: More and more boxing fans are starting to believe that WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) purposefully carried his opponent Eric Molina (23-3, 17 KOs) to the 9th round before finally putting him out of his misery last Saturday night at the Bartow Arena, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
In looking at the internet boxing chat rooms and message forums, a lot of fans think that the 6’7” Wilder chose to keep Molina around for the nine rounds in order to make the fight competitive rather than just going out there and blasting him out immediately like he capable of doing.
What has fans believing that Wilder carried Molina was how Wilder rarely used his right hand in the fight. If you look at each round, you’ll notice that Wilder only sparingly used his right hand. Further, when Wilder dropped Molina in rounds 4 and 5, he really didn’t go after him. Wilder instead appeared to let Molina off the each time rather than going for the coup de grace.
Another thing that is kind of fishy about Wilder’s performance is how he smothering Molina with compliments afterwards, saying how good a fighter he was, and just pouring on the compliments nice and thick. I almost got the impression that Wilder was building up Molina in order to make the fight more interesting than what it was.
Honestly, the way Wilder fought against Molina was exactly how Wilder fought against Jason Gavern last year in August. In that fight, Wilder didn’t throw many punches, and the ones he did throw were mostly jabs and left hooks. The only reason it ended was because Gavern got tired and kept going down each time Wilder would throw anything hard in the 3rd and 4th. Other than that, Wilder threw almost no power punches.
“I definitely was surprised. It does my heart so good even standing in front of him right now and say this guy has heart,” Wilder said via Skysports.com. “All the critics doubted him, all the naysayers said he wouldn’t last but I’m so proud of him. He has my support from this point on because this is the first ever title defence in any weight division in the state of Alabama.”
I think Wilder was just toying with Molina the way you would with your favorite sparring partner that you’ve had around for years and years. Wilder fought like he knew he could blast Molina out at any time, but instead of taking it out of 1st gear to finish Molina off, Wilder kept it in 1st gear the entire fight until Molina fell apart after Wilder threw one hard shot in the 9th.
In rounds 4 and 5, Wilder threw exactly three hard shots, and in each occasion, Molina hit the canvas. The rest of the punches were weak shots by Wilder with him just looking to make contact rather than looking to finish Molina.
“What I needed was a tough guy, I needed a guy that had heart, I needed a guy that was going to get dropped but come back up and still fight,” Wilder said. “I needed that. And Eric Molina, I got that out of him.”
Does that sound like a guy who was really trying to score a quick knockout? Heck no. I think the fans are right about Wilder just carrying Molina for nine rounds just to get rounds in and to let his Alabama fans get a chance to see him fight.
I personally don’t think it’s a good thing for Wilder to be doing stuff like this because it increases his popularity if he can get his opponent out as fast as possible, but Wilder might have wanted to let his fans see as much of him as possible. The only to do that is to stay in first gear for the entire nine rounds without trying to finish off your opponent.
Comments are closed.