By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) is finally fully recovered from his right arm injuries he suffered in his last fight against Chris Arreola last July in a title defense in Birmingham, Alabama, Wilders, 31, suffered a fractured right hand and a torn right biceps injury in the 4th round of that right, which he won by an 8th round knockout.
Wilder had surgery on both injuries, and he’s been healing and doing rehab during the last five months. It’s taken this long for the talented 6’7” Wilder to come fully back from the injuries, but he’s finally ready to go. The injury has arguably helped Wilder’s career, because it’s given him more time to work on developing his left hand to make it more of a weapon for him.
Wilder was only able to use his left hand for months because of right arm injury. This is the same thing that happened in 2015, when Wilder suffered a fractured right hand in his win over Bermane Stiverne. Wilder then spent months working on his left hand, and the results were positive with his left hand more of a weapon than it had been previously. It’s good news that Wilder is healed, because he wants to fight IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in a unification match in 2017. Before that, Wilder will likely need to fight the winner of the Bermane Stiverne vs. Alexander Povetkin fight.
Wilder said this to skyports.com about his right arm having healed:
“Everything is good,” Wilder said. “I’m in full training again, using both hands. Everything’s looking good so I can’t wait to get back into the ring. I’m able to punch with both hands, for sure. It’s been a long healing process but I’m ahead of schedule – I’m a fast healer because I’ve been an athlete all my life. Sometime early next year, I’ll be ready to go.”
Hopefully for Wilder’s sake, he can use his right hand will suffering any future injuries to it. He’s had problems with it on three occasions now during his career. It could be that Wilder has too much power for his right hand to handle it. Some guys just have too much power in their shots, and their hands can’t take that kind of power.
Of course, fighters like Wilder can help minimize their hand injuries by using proper form when throwing punches. This means they should focus on throwing straight punches with the knuckle part of their gloves landing rather than throwing clubbing shots. We saw in the 4th round of the Wilder-Arreola fight, Wilder hitting Arreola with some clubbing punches.
Hopefully that’s not how the injury occurred. Deontay needs to stay patient when he gets one of his opponents hurt, because he seems to punch better when he’s calm and focusing on throwing his shots with perfect form than when he gets excited and is shooting for a knockout over a hurt opponent.
Deontay still hasn’t defended his WBC title against his mandatory challenger since winning his belt last year. He’ll soon be fighting the winner of the Povetkin vs. Stiverne fight, and that should get that problem taken care of.
“2017 will be a beautiful year,” Deontay said. “Our goal is to unify the division so we need others that want to put their title on the line.”
A fight between Wilder and Joshua will be a good one in 2017 if it can happen. It’s probably not going to make it on pay-per-view though in the States, because Wilder isn’t that kind of a fighter. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will need to be patient about the pay-per-view process. He wants to turn the 27-year-old Joshua into a star in the U.S., but I don’t think that’s going to happen to the extent of Joshua becoming a PPV guy, especially if he loses to Deontay.
Wilder vs. Joshua will almost surely be put on regular Showtime. Yeah, they can certainly stick the fight on pay-per-view if they want to, but I think the PPV buys would quite low to the extreme. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wilder-Joshua does around 30,000 buys or less on PPV. It’s just not a big fight at all. Wilder is better off being seen on regular Showtime Boxing for now, because once his fights start being shown on PPV, he’s going to be seen by fewer boxing fans.
Wilder still needs more exposure in the U.S for him to become. I personally think the Wilder-Joshua fight is coming too soon. For it to be a big fight where it helps both guys’ careers, it should probably take place in a couple of years after Joshua has been seen more in the U.S. Joshua just recently started having his fights televised in the States, and he’s not facing good opposition. Joshua’s first fight in the U.S was a mismatch against fringe contender Dominic Breazeale.
Joshua is now taking another fringe contender in Eric Molina on December 10. How in the world is Joshua going to be able to win boxing fans in the States if all his promoter is going to do is stick him in with fringe contenders? Hearn needs to match Joshua against Dillian Whyte and Luis Ortiz. If Joshua loses, then it’s no big deal. Hearn can always rebuild his career by putting him back in with Breazeale, Charles Martin and Molina. I’m just saying. Joshua can come back from a loss without any problems as long as he gets the right kind of match-making by Hearn like what he’s been getting since he turned pro three years ago.