By Jim Dower: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs) will be making his second title defense of his WBC title in less than two weeks from now against WBC No.12 contender Johann Duhaupas (32-2, 20 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Legacy Arena, in Birmingham, Alabama.
Wilder, 29, must know that he needs to perform a lot better than he did in his last fight against fringe contender Eric Molina last June in Birmingham. Wilder won the fight by a 9th round knockout, but he was hurt a number of times by Molina, and he looked extremely vulnerable.
Molina exposed Wilder in that fight by showing that he doesn’t have the chin to take a good shot, and he lacks the two-fisted power that he’s going to need to get past the better contenders in the division like Alexander Povetkin and Anthony Joshua. Wilder has good enough power and hand speed to potentially KO any heavyweight in the division, but he looks too vulnerable right now to make it past any of those guys.
S/O to my man @kidchocolate, good luck in your fight today. Watch the fight on @NBC at 4pm ET… #PBConNBC pic.twitter.com/NHdAy70ojg
— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) September 12, 2015
Wilder need to hope that he can defeat the 32-year-old Duhaupas on September 26th. This fighter is an upgrade from Molina, and Wilder looked badly flawed in that fight. Duhaupas isn’t a big puncher, but neither was Molina. All Molina did was land a decent shot and he had Wilder’s knees buckling and him wobbling.
It’s a credit to Wilder that he was able to go as far as he’s gone with his limited talent. Few boxing fans thought he would ever beat a fighter as good as Bermane Stiverne. But Wilder caught Stiverne on one of his worst nights of his career with him coming into the fight dehydrated and not in the best of health. It’s difficult to picture Wilder beating Stiverne in a rematch right now if Stiverne came into the fight at his best.
Wilder needs a win over Duhaupas so that he can get a career high payday fighting the winner of the October 24th fight between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and Tyson Fury.
The World Boxing Council is willing to let Wilder skip past his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Povetkin in order for a unification fight to take place between Wilder and the Klitschko-Fury winner. But if Wilder can’t even beat France’s Duhaupas then there’s no point in the WBC letting that fight take place.
Wilder looked so bad against Molina that you cannot count Duhaupas out in this fight. He beat Manuel Charr in a convincing manner in his last fight, and Charr isn’t that far away from Wilder in the talent department. Charr would be a tough out for Wilder.
The Wilder- Duhaupas fight will be seen by a lot of American boxing fans on NBC on Premier Boxing Champions. This is Wilder’s opportunity to help build his fan base in a big way if he can win the fight and look bad. He needs a lot of fans if he wants to become a big star in the United States. But above all, Wilder needs to keep winning as long as he can so that he can put himself in position to become star.
Traditionally, American heavyweight champions have attracted a lot of attention in the country and made a lot of money. Wilder has a chance to cash in if he can hold onto his WBC title for a few years and beat the likes of Klitschko, Povetkin and Joshua. I don’t think Wilder is going to be able to beat any of those fighters. But if he does, he’s going to be sitting at the top of the world by 2017.
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