By Carlos Ortiz: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) says he’s going to send challenger Artur “Szpila The Pin” Szpilka (20-1, 15 KOs) to heaven this Saturday night in their Showtime televised fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Deontay says he doesn’t want to send Szpilka to hell like in the movies. He says all he wants to do is KO the 26-year-old “Pinhead” and send him to heaven in the process.
“Saturday night, January the 16th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, it’s going down; me vs. Artur ‘Pinhead’ Szpilka. Now we all know the movie ‘Pinhead went to hell,’ but we’re going to send Szpilka to heaven, baby,” Wilder said.
Deontay is not shy about what his intentions are in this fight. He says his right hand is now 100% healed from a fracture he suffered a year ago, and he wants to test it at full strength on the face of the Polish born Szpilka to knock him out. Deontay says he’s open to having Szpilka’s Polish fans get on the Deontay Wilder bandwagon.
Szpilka is vulnerable to getting knocked. He was stopped by Bryant Jennings two years ago in 2014 in a 10th round TKO defeat. Szpilka has made great improvements in his came since that fight in beating a very good fighter in Tomasz Adamek in 2014. Szpilka also has recent wins over Ty Cobb, Yasmany Consuegra, and Manuel Quezada. Szpilka looks to be a much better fighter now than the one that lost to Jennings in 2014.
Szpilka was too young to be taking on a fighter as good as Jennings at that time. You’ve got to give Szpilka a lot of credit for taking that fight at only 24 instead of waiting until he was more mature like he is now. If Jennings and Szpilka fought today, it’s quite possible that the results would be flipped. Szpilka would have a good chance of knocking Jennings out.
Deontay has been winning all of his fights, but he’s only fought one good fighter during his career in beating Bermane Stiverne in 2015. Stiverne came into the fight dehydrated and he was not the same fighter that had beaten Chris Arreola twice in one-sided fights. Deontay has not shined in his last two fights against Johann Duhaupas and Eric Molina. He’s looked vulnerable. If those fighters were a little better, Deontay might have lost to them.
Szpilka has a good chance of scoring an upset on Saturday night. You can call the fight a 50-50 affair. If Szpilka fights smart and is able to avoid Deontay’s right hand, then it’s quite possible he’ll knock him out.
