It’s expected to be announced by press conference Thursday that WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder will defend his green belt for the second time against little-known French fighter Johann Duhaupas (32-2, 20ko). The bout has been confirmed to take place in his home state of Alabama on September 26th in a PBC on NBC broadcast according to AL.com.
Again it seems Al Haymon and Wilder have decided to scrape the barrell of the WBC rankings, with the Frenchman ranked outside of the Top 10 at #12. This is obviously a step backwards from part time fighter/full time teacher Eric Molina, who Wilder made hard work of defeating in June, and who was ranked #9 with the WBC when that fight was announced.
I’m surprised they didn’t stretch the limit and pick #15, the lowest allowed by the sanctioning body for a voluntary, and go for #15, Kyotaro Fujimoto (12-1, 6ko) – he hasn’t boxed since April after all!
It seems anything is possible with Deontay, who has failed to set the world alight since winning the title in January in a career best performance against Bermane Stiverne, and criticism of this upcoming bout is likely to be fierce.
The limited Duhaupas managed a career best win in April by getting a 10 round MD nod over heavyweight contender Manuel Charr in Russia, which is likely to be the selling point for this fight with Wilder.
In the fight prior to that (one month before Charr) he was soundly beaten on points by new EBU heavyweight champion Erkan Teper – who even lost a point in the 9th round of their bout.
Wilder, whose mandatory with dangerous Russian Alexander Povetkin is due in January, is ostensibly “staying out of the way” until that time.
Povetkin is set to fight Mariusz Wach on November 4th in Russia.
Twitter @Undilutedpoison
