By Tim Royner: The highly anticipated showdown between WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and 2012 U.S Olympian Dominic Breazeale will be shown LIVE on Sky Sports on May 18. The British boxing fans will get a chance to see these two giant heavyweights go at it in their fight on the 18th of May at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilder can’t lose this fight against Breazeale if he wants to be in position for the unification match against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2020. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wanted the fight between those two heavyweights to take place for the heavyweight championship in November. Hearn complains that Joshua will have a logjam of mandatory defenses he’ll need to take care of after his voluntary defense on June 1 against American Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller. Hearn says the best possible time for the unification fight between Wilder and Joshua is in November, because after that, AJ will start vacating his titles. Wilder might not be too worried about that. The titles are less important now than the two heavyweights fighting each. The boxing public already recognized Wilder and Joshua as the two best heavyweights. Tyson Fury is bringing up the rear, but he’s likely languish away now that he’s signed with Top Rank is being matched against soft opposition. Fury is now out of the picture when it comes to the top heavyweights fights, and he’s likely to stay that way.
“We need to see one champion, one face, one name,” said Wilder to skysports.com. “It is a mighty task to getting that complete. It takes cooperation with a lot of people to make that happen. Everybody wants to see the big fight but there are certain things we need to do – [Breazeale] is the mandatory. One fight, one step at a time,” Wilder said.
Depending on the ruling of the World Boxing Council, the winner of the Wilder vs. Breazeale fight could be ordered to face #1 WBC Dillian Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) in their next title defense. This is what Mathroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is trying to make happen after recently meeting with the WBC at their headquarters. If Whyte doesn’t get the fight with the Wilder-Breazeale winner, then a fight against Anthony Joshua is possible 2020. Wilder told the media last weekend that he wont be fighting Joshua until next year. In the meantime, Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) still needs to get passed the much improved 6’7″ Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs), who has come a long ways since losing to Joshua by a 7th round knockout in June 2016. Breazeale is a much different fighter now after picking up more experience, and developing his punching power. Breazeale is sitting down on his shots a lot more than when he fought Joshua three years ago.
Breazeale has stopped his last three opponents Izuagbe Ugonoh, Eric Molina and Carlos Negron. The win for Breazeale over Molina, an eighth round stoppage, was a significant one for Breazeale, as it earned him the WBC mandatory spot to face Wilder. Had Dilian Whyte participated in a WBC eliminator against Luis “King Kong” Ortiz like the sanctioning body wanted him to, he would have no reasons to complain about why he’s not getting a world title shot against Wilder.
Whyte would already be the secondary mandatory challenger, and would be waiting his turn to fight for the WBC world title. As it is now, the WBC might order Whyte to fight Ortiz again, and he would be in the position where he would need to make a decision whether to take that fight. It’s better late than never for Whyte. If he had taken the fight two years ago, he’d be the mandatory waiting for a title shot, but instead, he’s been wasting time fighting guys like Dereck Chisora, Malcolm Tann, Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne, Robert Helenius and Joseph Parker. Whyte was counting on the WBC making him the mandatory without needing to fight in an eliminator, which was obviously a mistake on his part.