Wladimir has worked with the huge punching Deontay Wilder in the past when Deontay worked as his sparring partner to get him ready for his title defense against the big hitting 6’8” Mariusz Wach in 2012.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By John Stevens: Very soon now, as long as there are no last minute accidents, injuries or flu attacks, we will be seeing one of the most highly anticipated battles in the heavyweight division for many years.
Both Stiverne and Wilder look very calm and collected. Their body languages display no negative signals as far as I have seen. Both men look to be completely ‘in the zone’, and boxers, when in the zone, are at their absolute peak of ability. One of them though, is going to be battered out of that zone!
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: If there’s one thing that the giant sized American heavyweight Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) is expecting from boxing fans after Saturday night is him not getting any credit for having beaten WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Indeed, Deontay, 6’7”, believes that people will discredit his win over Stiverne by saying that the Haitian fighter wasn’t any good to begin with. It would be kind of like how people discredited Malik Scott after Deontay stroked him out in one round last year.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: American heavyweight challenger Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) will be getting the biggest purse on Saturday night in the Stiverne-Wilder card against WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wilder, who is promoted by adviser Al Haymon, will be getting a cool $1 million for the first title shot of his career. For his part, Stiverne, 36, will be collecting $910,000. It’s not a bad payday for Stiverne, who is finally tasting the good money as he nears 40.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: At today’s final press conference, WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) and challenger Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) were both in fine form in jawing back and forth with one another to hype their fight for this Saturday night on January 17th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deontay, a much better talker a quicker with than Stiverne, got the better of their trash talking by a long mile.
Stiverne, a quiet type, was out of his element in trying to match wits with Deontay, who is clearly one of the best trash talkers the heavyweight division has seen since Muhammad Ali.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight world champion Evander Holyfield is giving unbeaten American talent Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) a good shot at beating WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) on Saturday night as long as the 6’7” Deontay stays on the outside and uses his huge height and reach advantage to keep the shorter, heavily built Stiverne at the end of his punches.
Above all, Deontay can’t let the 6’2” Stiverne to get inside of his reach because he’ll then open himself up to getting hit by the hard hitting Canadian fighters’ best power punches.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) expects not only to soundly beat WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) this Saturday night in their title fight, but also put many of his team members out of work at the same time with the victory at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deontay wants to beat 6’2” Stiverne in such a convincing manner that his team members will be out of work.
“I am super-confident and I can’t wait. Someone is going to lose their job. I am going to put his whole team out of commission. That’s my promise,” Deontay said.
That would be interesting if Stiverne either cleaned out his team after a knockout loss to Deontay, or his team members abandoned ship after he lost his title, leaving one by one.
(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By John Stevens: As an obsessive boxing fan and participant for the last 40+ years I wanted to write in and say some words regarding this very important and interesting fight. Thus – I wanted to present a clear and open synopsis, looking at both men individually and seeing exactly where we are in this very intriguing contest which to me looks like an explosion waiting to happen!
The shadow of the great Wladimir Klitschko hangs over this of course, as he is the man to beat for the victor of this fight (But that is another story!) – However, Wladimir must surely be looking to wind down within the next few years after a long and pretty incredible career, thus leaving the door open for one of the two guys in this contest to take over his crown, not to mention a pretty long line of tasty heavyweights coming up through the ranks right now who are looking to stake their claim too. Exciting times ahead for sure; but I digress – lets look now at the two protagonists in this battle and see what we’ve got……
LAS VEGAS (Jan. 13, 2015) – “RETURN TO GLORY: Stiverne vs. Wilder” fight week is officially here as WBC Heavyweight World Champion Bermane “B. Ware” Stiverne, undefeated No. 1 challenger Deontay “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder, Hall of Fame promoter Don King, WBC Super Bantamweight Champion Leo “Terremoto” Santa Cruz and all the fighters on the SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING® tripleheader live on SHOWTIME® (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT) this Saturday, Jan. 17, made their grand arrivals at MGM Grand this afternoon.