Deontay Wilder made an emphatic statement to the rest of the division with a first round demolition of Bermane Stiverne tonight on Showtime. On the undercard, Shawn Porter and Sergey Lipinets picked up entertaining, hard fought victories over Adrian Granados and Akihiro Kondo respectively. Both ended up in a little deeper than it looked like they would be on paper but ended up fairly prevailing anyway.
That was quick. Deontay Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) took about a minute before deciding to unleash the arsenal on a too pudgy Bermane Stiverne (25-3-1, 21 KOs). From there, one big right hand dropped the former champion to his rear end. He rose, but Wilder swarmed in his reckless way and put him down again. Wilder implored Stiverne’s corner to stop the fight after the second knockdown, but they didn’t and Deontay put him out cold with huge left to right combo to end the night. It all took less than three minutes.
This rematch was a pointless exercise ordered by the WBC for no reasons that can be called actual boxing related. Deontay Wilder did what he could with it at least. There isn’t much more to say on the main event.
Wilder can now officially say he has stopped everyone has ever faced. Anthony Joshua was called out after the fight, of course, and the WBC titlist did say he’d go to the UK to meet the unified titleholder. He also more or less dismissed the idea of meeting Dillian Whyte first to get there. Here is to hoping that the next fight for these two men can be against one another. Even as an American, I hope it is at Wembley too. That atmosphere would be the best in the sport and I’d love to see it on TV.
Shawn Porter (28-2-1, 17 KOs) picked up the expected win over Adrian Granados (18-6-2, 12 KOs) in the night’s co-main event. Granados fought well like he always does, but the high level athletic and mauling style of Shawn Porter was a bit too much for him for most of the night. Granados, who wants to fight at junior welterweight but can’t get the opportunities, definitely got his work in too, but he was narrowly edged in most of the rounds.
At times the Chicago fighter tried to resort to machismo, once even putting himself on the ropes and begging Porter to come in despite the fact that Porter feasts on opponents on the ropes. He had a particularly good sixth highlighted by a big, early right hand I thought, but usually he just got slightly outlanded.
This was an entertaining fight that stayed the way all the way through. Interest picked up again in the last couple of rounds as Showtime Shawn began to noticeably fatigue. For whatever reason, Porter all but stopped fighting in the last two rounds in particular. Granados attacked relentlessly, but the former titleholder’s defensive flailing and clinching largely nullified the bulk of his attack. It was a pretty weird finish, but what it did do is help Adrian Granados close the gap on the cards a bit.
I scored it 116-112 Shawn Porter. The official cards came back fairly at 117-111. Post fight Porter revealed that he had a left hand injury which helped to explain his late fight fade. Granados started to complain about the decision, but the crowd silenced him in a hurry with a chorus of boos. Farhood had it 117-111 too.
In the opener, Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) picked up his first world title trinket with a unanimous decision win over Akihiro Kondo (29-7-1, 16 KOs). Lipinet’s little know Japanese foe did better than I thought he would here. I believed he’d get rolled over and instead he was competitive in each round with his body work, winning many of them. I didn’t think he won, but Steve Farhood gave him a draw.
New IBF junior welterweight titleholder Lipinets set the tone of the fight with his back foot boxing style that someone still manages to be aggressive going backwards. He jabbed well and ripped the body in particularly through four. Kondo landed a real big right hand in the fifth that briefly bothered Lipinets, probably winning him the round. This altered the tone of the fight for a bit.
The middle rounds afterward largely belonged to Kondo, but Lipinets won a few and all were competitive. Really this was a difficult fight to score due to their styles. Both would do really solid work but in opposite ways. A few times I thought Lipinets was going to start to fall apart, but he never did and by the tenth and eleventh rounds he had completely reestablished himself as the leader of the fight.
The cards came back 118-110 and 117-111 twice. I had it 116-112. Steve Farhood actually had it a draw. I didn’t think that was a very good card, but of course Showtime had to then go on about the decision a bit unfairly afterward as is tradition whenever a TV scorer puts up a questionable card. Regardless of the outcome, Akihiro Kondo proved himself at worst a top 25 junior welterweight. I will reflect this in Wednesday’s rankings update. Lipinets now has his belt, but there were some defensive issues here that need to be worked on going forward.
