By Jeff Aranow: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) will be the visiting fighter when he steps foot inside the ring on May 21 against Russian Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) at the Khodnyka Ice Palace in Moscow, Russia. Normally, the visiting fighter would be feeling a lot of pressure to perform in front of a hostile crowd that will be cheering whatever the home fighter does inside the ring.
However, Wilder says he feels confident he’s going to win this fight. He’s not worried about pressure. The one that he feels will be dealing with the stress of this fight is the 36-year-old Povetkin because he’ll be fighting one of the biggest punchers in the heavyweight division in Deontay Wilder, and his home country of Russia will be expecting a lot of him.
Povetkin will have problems with Wilder’s size, speed and power no matter what the circumstances are for the fight. It’s just a tough style match-up for Povetkin because he’s a small heavyweight and he doesn’t fight well against the bigger heavyweights. Povetkin has fought only a small handful or large heavyweights during his pro career, and he hasn’t been put in great performances.
Povetkin lost to Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, and had a hard time against Mariusz Wach last November in beating him. The one tall heavyweight that Povetkin did do well against was Andrzej Wawrzyk, who he stopped in three rounds in 2013. However, that wasn’t a 1st tier heavyweight, so you couldn’t learn anything from that fight.
“Most of all, he has heart. He’s determined. He’s willing to get in there,” said Wilder to latimes.com. “And he’s got his own country to perform for. That’s a lot of pressure on him — to have his whole country and have the president — whether he’s going to be there or whether he’s going to be on TV. That’s a lot of pressure for a guy to be facing — to be facing another guy known for breaking people, known for putting people in the hospital. And this is not talk, these are facts.”
Wilder, 6’7”, will very likely change his fighting style for the Povetkin fight because it’ll be too risky for him to throw power shots against him like he was in his last fight against Artur Szpilka last January. Wilder will probably elect to use his jab to control the fight from the outside rather than unloading on Povetkin with right hand bombs from round one.
Wilder might have good luck in bouncing right hands off the head of Povetkin, because Wladimir was able to knock him down several times with big power shots. It’s likely that Wilder’s trainers will have him use his size and reach to pick the shorter 6’2” Povetkin apart from the outside rather than giving him chances to counter Wilder when he throws his right hand power shots.
“My mind is straight-focused on this fight. I’m not going to get flustered by what happened to the next man,” said Wilder.
It’s got to be a little intimidating for Wilder going into this fight because Povetkin has looked really good in winning his last four fights against Wach, Mike Perez, Carlos Takam and Manuel Charr.