By Scott Gilfoid: The negotiations between WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) and his mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) have failed to produce a scheduled fight like they had hoped for. Povetkin, 36, says that they have failed. As such, it will now go to purse bids. The purse bid will be taking place next week on February 26.
“Talks failed, there will be trade negotiations,” Povetkin told TASS earlier today.
This is a negative if it goes to a purse bid because this increases the chance that the fight could take place in Russia. If one of the wealthy Russian promoters decides he wants to stage the Wilder-Povetkin fight, then it’s quite possible he’ll put in such a huge bid that Wilder’s management won’t be able to compete with it.
At that point, Wilder will be stuck either agreeing to defend his title against Povetkin in Russia or vacate the belt. I hate to say it but I think it would be much better if Wilder vacated his title and instead went after the likes of the winner of the Wladimir Klitschko vs. Tyson Fury fight, or against the winner of the Charles Martin vs. Anthony Joshua fight.
When you work hard to achieve greatness you don't know what it means to give up. I'm a champ because I earned it… pic.twitter.com/vSEwSRMNmy
— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) February 17, 2016
That sounds like a better deal for Wilder because at least he wouldn’t have to go fight on foreign soil like he would need to do in order to fight Povetkin. As we saw with the Felix Sturm vs. Fedor Chudinov fight earlier tonight, it doesn’t work out well very often for visiting fighters. You hate to see a world champion vacate a title without a fight, but I think it might be the best thing for Wilder to in order to avoid becoming another Chudinov.
The Chudinov-Sturm fight in Germany was a classic example of what can happen to a world champion when he fights in the challenger’s home country in front of hostile fans. If Wilder takes the fight with Povetkin, he might find himself in the position where he absolutely must get a knockout in order to get the win.
There’s no upside for Deontay to keep the WBC title any longer. He needs to just vacate before he finds himself on the losing end of a controversial decision. There’s no money in a fight against Povetkin like there would be for Wilder if he faced the winner of the Klitschko-Fury 2 fight or the winner of the Charles Martin vs. Anthony Joshua fight. That would be a huge positive for Wilder if he could get the winner of those two fights. There’s something that can be said about popular champions vacating their titles. What it allows a fighter like Deontay to do is to pick whoever he wants to fight without being weighed down by a world title. Deontay is like the heavyweight division’s version of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and that definitely means that Deontay can do whatever he pleases regardless of whether he has a world title or not.
Deontay has my permission to vacate his WBC title without any feelings of guilt, because like I said, the last thing he needs is to get stuck fighting in a foreign country and wind up possibly getting robbed if it goes to the scorecards.
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