Preamble
Good evening and welcome to Brooklyn for tonight’s heavyweight title fight between Deontay Wilder and Dominic Breazeale. We’re ringside at Barclays Center for the first of three key fights in the next four weeks involving the three men with legitimate claims to the title of world’s best heavyweight: Wilder, Anthony Joshua (who fights Andy Ruiz Jr in two weeks) and Tyson Fury (who meets the unheralded Tom Schwarz on 15 June).
Fight fans would no doubt prefer they’d be doing a round robin with each other rather than a trio of low-risk opponents they’re expected to beat. But of the fights on hand, tonight’s appears to be the most competitive. Breazeale, whose lone career defeat came by seventh-round stoppage in Anthony Joshua’s first title defense, will go off as a 5-1 underdog. The former college quarterback has formidable power and enough ring smarts to make it a close (and boring) fight, but it’s hard to pick against Wilder in any fight over 12 rounds as long as he’s in his athletic prime due to the power he’s packing in either hand. Eventually, the punches will get there.
Gary Russell Jr has just successfully defended his WBC featherweight title in the co-main event against Kiko Martínez by fifth-round TKO due to a bad cut over Martínez’s left eye, which means Wilder and Breazeale should make their entrances in about 15 minutes or so.