(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: American heavyweight Bryant Jennings isn’t necessarily out of the running for WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s next fight in January, according to the talented 6’7” Deontay. He says he wouldn’t mind fighting Jennings so that he could get him out of the way. Wilder says there are a lot of different guys that he could fight in January.
They’re going to choose someone good obviously so that he can get some rounds in while at the same time getting ready for his important title defense against his #1 WBC challenger Alexander Povetkin in early next year.
Wilder wants to also prepare for his unification fight against the 6’6” IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2016. It won’t help Wilder if he spends time getting ready for the short 6’2” Povetkin, who he’ll likely toy with. Wilder needs to be fighting the taller guys because Wladimir is a real threat to him, whereas Povetkin is just an aging short guy who hasn’t faced a good fighter since his loss to Wladimir two years ago in 2013. Wilder will likely toy with Povetkin and just clown him, whether the fight takes place in the United States or Russia.
“He [Jennings] knows he can’t beat me. My style, my skill level is way beyond him,” Wilder said to al.com. “When he fought Klitschko, he proved that he could survive. That’s not what a champion is made of, not just to survive but also win. But that’s one of my U.S. rivals and I would love to get one of my U.S. rivals out of the way for sure, so it could so happen to be him. There’s a lot of great guys out there so we’re looking to see what happens.”
Wilder needs a good name for his next fight, and Jennings would provide him that name if Wilder’s adviser Al Haymon is open to letting him take on the 6’3” fighter. If Not Jennings, then Wilder needs to face someone like Tony Thompson, Chris Arreola or Vyacheslav Glazkov. Any of those three fighters would work to prepare Wilder for either Povetkin or Klitschko.
Glazkov obviously would be perfect for Wilder to prepare for the Povetkin fight if that’s something that his Haymon feels he needs. If he’s confident that Wilder will breeze past Povetkin without any problems as I am, then I think they should go with the 6’5” Thompson because he’s got the similar size as Wladimir, and both guys are fairly close in the age department.
Thompson is a little older than Wladimir at 43, but in terms of actual physical age, I see Thompson as being the younger fighter than Wladimir. Thompson doesn’t seem to be aging. His face looks like someone in their mid-30s, and he’s fighting at the same level as he was years earlier.
The only difference that I can see between Thompson from 2003 to the Thompson from 2015 is he’s got some flab on his midsection that has been there for his last handful of fights. The weight isn’t slowing him down, but it makes him look older. Thompson could burn that blubber off if he wanted to, but what for? It’s not hurting him any, as he’s still fighting at a high level.
Thank you for all the tweets y'all send me!! I see them all and would respond to all of them if I could…. pic.twitter.com/kItd5WYkBw
— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) October 8, 2015
“They can’t hold me down from fighting,” Wilder said. “I’m not going to sit around. I’m the champ. When you’re the champ, you decide when and where you’re going to fight. I’m going to keep fighting. Hopefully he [Povetkin] wins his next fight and we can get it on the next one. I can’t wait for all of them.”
Povetkin royally blew it by choosing to face the 6’8” Mariusz Wach on November 4th in Russia, because if he didn’t take that fight, then he and Wilder could be facing each other in December instead of the fight having to wait until 2016 in order to happen.
That’s a real pity because Wilder obviously prefer to get Povetkin out of his hair so that he can get to the more interesting fights against the likes of Klitschko. It’s always a negative when you get stuck fighting guys that the American boxing public don’t care to see you fight like Povetkin.
Wilder defeated Johann Duhaupas last month by an 11th round knockout on September 26th on Premier Boxing Champions. It was a fight that obviously excited the cable networks like Showtime, and they obviously are chomping at the bit to get Wilder back in the ring in January for him to dazzle them again with another extraordinary performance like that one. The World Boxing Council isn’t going to stand in the way of Wilder and prevent him from fighting and making more cash. The more Wilder fights the bigger his eventual unification fight with Wladimir will be.
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