Deontay Wilder Faces His Toughest Challenge Yet with Title Fight in Russia
Deontay Wilder better pack his bags (and maybe some warm clothes) because he’s heading to Russia for his latest title defense.
It’s time to run up those mountains and chop wood just like Rocky did in Rocky IV, even though Wilder is the one who more closely approximates the physical attributes of super-villain Ivan Drago than his opponent.
Vadim Pushkin of Boxing Scene reports that Russian billionaire Andrey Ryabinsky has elected to stage the WBC Heavyweight Championship fight between Wilder and former titlist Alexander Povetkin in Russia on May 21.
Ryabinsky earned the right to pick the date and site by outbidding Lou DiBella, who promotes Wilder on a fight-by-fight basis, in a purse bid last month. His bid of over $7 million will guarantee Wilder a career-high payday.
Traveling to Russia presents both a massive challenge and a massive opportunity for the towering Wilder, who, despite huge punching power, an affable personality and a back story that makes him impossible to dislike, still retains many critics.
He’s untested, they say.
He’s been on the cupcake diet since capturing a heavyweight belt from Bermane Stiverne early in 2014, which is a statement that holds some merit.
He’ll get beat the first time he steps up.
Whenever Wilder’s name comes up in polite (sometimes not) boxing conversation, the odds are good that you’ll hear one or all of those statements.
Part of it comes from the contrarian worldview of many boxing fans, but another part comes from legitimate questions about whether Wilder has the goods to be a dominant champion or is just a flashy (albeit powerful as hell) pretender.
Don’t you stress yourselves, we’ll find out in May, one way or another.
Povetkin is light-years better than any man Wilder has ever seen staring across the ring from him at the opening bell.
He’s a former world champion with just one defeat, and that came to then-undisputed champion Wladimir Klitschko in an ugly fight dominated by some awful refereeing by the king of such shenanigans, Luis Pabon.
That’s not to say that Povetkin would’ve beaten Klitschko on that night without the referee’s ineptness, but he probably could’ve been more competitive without the towering Wlad having an open invitation to excessively hold and push down on his head without sanction.
Povetkin’s won four straight fights inside the distance since that time and looked increasingly impressive in each performance. He’ll have home-field advantage and a supportive crowd at his back as he seeks to capture a second world title.
It’s a lot to ask of a fighter who has really only had one fight where he didn’t enter as an overwhelming favorite (Stiverne, and he was still the favorite, just less overwhelmingly so) to travel halfway around the world to face his toughest test.
Give Wilder credit for that much, though the nice multimillion dollar payday certainly helped to make the decision that much easier.
And he can win this fight, which would certainly go a long way toward satisfying many of the naysayers.
Eric Molina didn’t do that, he added to it.
Ditto for the unknown Johann Duhaupas.
Artur Szpilka outboxed him before taking a nuclear right hand that left him unconscious and showed why Wilder, raw as he still might be in terms of technical skill, can absolutely never be counted out of any fight.
He could land that right hand on any heavyweight living and breathing on this planet today and put them down for a 20 count.
That includes Povetkin, Klitschko, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua or anyone else you can think to throw on that list. He has that type of devastating one-punch power.
It’s just that sudden and that concussive. Nothing prepares you for feeling it.
Not running, not sparring and not the coldest night of the Siberian winter.
Povetkin presents an immense challenge, but also an opportunity for Wilder to once and for all arrive as a true champion and not some paper tiger.
All he needs to do is go to Russia and beat the toughest opponent of his career.
No small task with no small reward.
