By Sean Jones: Otto Wallin (20-1, 13 KOs) and former WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight champion Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne (29-2, 25 KOs) have agreed to terms for a fight on Showtime in the spring. @MikeCoppinger is reporting that the fight is agreed on, and they’ll be battling it out. This is a confidence booster level fight for Wallin, since it’s a mismatch on paper.
There’s talk that the Wallin vs. Browne fight will be the main event on Showtime. That would be a questionable move on the network’s part, as neither guy has a big fan base in the U.S. Brown, 40, was recently knocked out in the 3rd round by British domestic level heavyweight Dave Allen last April.
Further, Dillian Whyte stopped Browne in the 6th round in March 2018. You get the picture. The Australian Browne is not in his prime, and hasn’t been in quite some time.
Browne’s career has really fallen off since his upset 10th round knockout win over WBA secondary heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev in March 2016 in Grozny, Russia. He was 36 at the time, and still capable of putting in a good effort without gassing and falling apart. Since that fight, Browne has a 5-2 record. His wins have come against these fighters:
- Matthew Greer
- Julius Long
- Kamil Sokolowski – controversial win
- John Hopoate
- Junior Pati
This is an interesting choice for the 6’5 1/2″ Swedish heavyweight Wallin, seeing that he’s coming off of a fairly impressive performance against lineal heavyweight champion Tyson ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury on September 14 last year. Without a doubt, Wallin, 29, deserved his 12 round unanimous decision loss to Fury, but he gave him problems. Wallin stunned Fury in the 12th round with a left to the head that had him holding on, and looking in distress.
If Wallin had any punching power, he would have finished the job without question. By that point in the fight, Fury was exhausted, flat-footed, and no longer able to dodge the shots from Wallin.
This wasn’t one of Fury’s better efforts, thanks to the body punching and the constant pressure Wallin put on him. Still, Fury won the fight by the scores 118-110, 117-111, 116-112. But in the process of winning, he was cut over his right eye with a wound that required 47 stitches to sew up after the contest was over. Wallin was putting hands on Fury, nailing him with straight lefts down the middle, and showing decent power. It didn’t matter that Wallin’s power wasn’t extreme, he was still doing a number on Fury’s face. Wallin made sure he roughed up Fury up to work on his cut eye.
Wallin made Fury look like an aging heavyweight past his best. That’s one of the reasons why some boxing fans believe WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder is going to obliterate Fury in their rematch on February 22.