By Jeff Aranow: Former heavyweight world title challenger Dominic Breazeale is complaining that he’s not started negotiations yet for a fight against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Breazeale is unhappy that Wilder hasn’t started negotiations with him. Breazeale (19-1, 17 KOs) feels that Wilder should start the negotiations with him due to him being his mandatory since his 8th round stoppage win over Eric Molina last November.
Breazeale, 32, believes that he’s being ducked by Wilder, who is in negotiations to face unbeaten Tyson Fury. Due to the WBC still not having ordered Wilder to defend against Breazeale, it allows Deontay to make a voluntary defense against Fury. Breazeale doesn’t officially become Wilder’s mandatory challenger until December, and by that time, he’ll likely have fought Fury. Breazeale wants Wilder to not face Fury and instead facing him. Since there’s no fan interest in a Wilder-Breazeale fight, a fight between them isn’t going to happen until the World Boxing Council orders it.
“He’s ducking me. He wants to fight somebody else,” Breazeale said to Fighthype about Wilder being interested in facing Tyson Fury in a much bigger money fight. ”Negotiations haven’t started or anything. I’m waiting for the date, which is December. I get a shot at that point. Before that, the WBA allows their champions to take a voluntary defense.”
Breazeale is going to need to sit and wait patiently for the Wilder vs. Fury fight to get out of the way before he has a chance at fighting the winner. But even after that fight is over with, there’s a strong chance that the Wilder-Fury will decide on facing IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in a unification fight rather than facing Breazeale. The WBC allows unification fights to take place over mandatory defenses. This means that Breazeale is going to need to wait.
Breazeale is wasting his time being inactive waiting for his mandatory title shot against Wilder. Breazeale needs to stay busy by fighting someone to stay sharp. Wilder is looking to fight the best. Breazeale needs to be doing the same.
Three fights ago, Breazeale was beaten by Joshua by a 7th round knockout in June 2016. After talking a big game, Breazeale did little against Joshua in throwing few punches and mainly soaking up punishment until the fight was halted in the 7th. It was an embarrassingly bad performance by Breazeale. He had talked about how he was going to take the fight to Joshua, but when he got inside the ring with him, he did next to nothing. Since that fight, Breazeale beat Izuagbe Ugonoh by a 5th round knockout in a war last year in February. Breazeale was fortunate to win the fight, as he was close to being knocked out in the 4th. Ugonoh dropped Breazeale and had him out on his feet.
