By Gav Duthie: Deontay ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder 34-0 (33) kicked off 2015 in style bringing a ray of hope to a heavyweight division long forgotten by many fans. Through no fault of their own Lennox Lewis and the Klitschko brothers cooled interest in the league of the giants with their unrivaled supremacy. Due to their powerful but tactical boxing displays and to some a lack of personality popularity of heavyweights have declined over the last 20 years.
Wilder the first American champion since 2006 (Shannon Briggs) looked like he might change all that with a dominant display against Haitian Bermane Stiverne. After a shaky defence against undeserving challenger Eric Molina followed by the news he is to defend next against a similar opponent in Johann Duhaupas 32-2 (20) instead of his mandatory Alexander Povetkin many are again questioning the star qualities of Wilder.
Team Wilder
Is Al Haymon as unsure about the rest of us as to how good he is. If they are worried that the party will end with Povetkin it makes sense to avoid him. Wilder’s representatives said they wouldn’t be waiting around on the Russian and they would keep busy, fair enough? They announced he would fight Frenchman #12 WBC contender Johann Duhaupas for 26 September. Just recently it we heard that Alexander Povetkin 29-1 (20) is to fight Mariusz Wach 31-1 (17) on November 4th only 5 weeks later. Surely a top champion would be happy to wait 5 weeks in order to fight such a big fight. Povetkin is generally considered the 2nd best heavyweight and is worth more than five wins over the likes of Duhaupas.
Is this simply a case of avoiding his mandatory. Former champion Bermane Stiverne certainly seems to think so.
Its hard to argue based on the evidence so far with these opponents but I have said before this is not Wilder’s fault. He is being protected but if this continues it will hurt him. Perhaps Haymon and co feel he needs some stepping stones fight and is still learning after only a handful of decent wins on his 34 fight resume.
Povetkin has fought 4 less fights than Wilder yet has already beaten
Mike Perez
Carlos Takam
Manuel Charr
Eddie Chambers
Marco Huck
Hasim Rahman
Ruslan Chagaev
Chris Byrd
There really is no contest in terms of levels of opponents but Wilder can definitely beat him. If he does then he can genuinely take over the heavyweight division post Klitschko but the question is when will Al Haymon let him?
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