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Bermane Stiverne’s brief heavyweight title reign came to an end last night at MGM Grand in Las Vegas as challenger Deontay Wilder walked out of the arena with an intact undefeated record but more importantly, with new found respect in the Boxing community.
Gone is Wilder’s KO streak but the towering Alabama native is likely glad to have traded that in for proof that he can go 12 rounds after having 32 professional contests all end in four rounds or less.
Stiverne simply never got his offense in gear as Wilder prevented such an occurrence by employing his considerable advantages in height, reach and punching power.
After a cautious first round, Wilder nailed Stiverne with a hard right in the closing moments of the second, then proceeded to batter the shaken champion, who only avoided getting accessed a knockdown by literally tackling Wilder to the canvas.
From that point on, Stiverne was clearly aware of the challenger’s concussive power and was never too keen on cutting off the ring and engaging Wilder, who maintained distance by circling away from Stiverne for the entire contest.
Stiverne was able to land a few whipping left hooks, particularly in the sixth when Wilder was definitely shaken up, but he could never build upon that due to Wilder’s persistent jab, which was landing on Stiverne every round.
Both men were tired in the later rounds and by that time, all the ambition had been punched out of Stiverne as Wilder simply walked around the ring, jabbing occasionally while waiting for time to run out.
Wilder was awarded a well-deserved 120-107, 119-108, 118-109 points win to see his record to 33-0 (32). Stiverne falls to 24-2-1 (21).
With the victory, Wilder successfully answered questions surrounding his stamina, boxing skills and ability to take a good punch but let’s face it – Stiverne isn’t Wladimir Klitschko by any stretch of the imagination.
While a unification between Wilder and Klitschko has already been talked about in the media, the newly crowned WBC king might have to take care of more pressing matters first.
Wilder’s mandatory should be WBC Silver titlist Alexander Povetkin, currently #2 in that organization’s rankings, and a meeting between those two would possibly take place in Russia for financial reasons.
Should that occur, Wilder would be facing a tougher opponent than Stiverne, as former WBA champ Povetkin has faced good opposition during his career and has only come up short to Klitschko.
On the undercard at MGM Grand, WBC super bantam king Leo Santa Cruz, 29-0-1 (17), was put in with yet another lesser challenger, this time Jesus Ruiz, 33-5-2 (22), who had never previously been near world class opposition.
Ruiz, however, mounted a spirited challenge before he was hurt in the eighth round and stopped by the swarming champion.
When will Santa Cruz’s backers put “El Teremoto” in a long-awaited unification clash with any of the following super bantam champions: Guillermo Rigondeaux, Scott Quigg or Carl Frampton?
Talk about Santa Cruz going to featherweight to meet former three weight world champ Abner Mares seems premature as Santa Cruz has yet to meet top opposition in his current division.
In the most competitive bout on the card last night, light welters Amir Imam, 16-0 (14), and Fidel Maldonado Jr, 19-3 (16), threw defense out the window in a slugfest that saw Imam down once and Maldonado hit the canvas four times before Imam won by stoppage at 2:59 of the fifth round.
