Undefeated Australian heavyweight Lucas Browne has something to say to current WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
Browne, who holds the WBC EPBC and WBA Inter-Continental titles, says the undefeated American would have been knocked out cold if he were the man across the ring last Saturday evening in Birmingham, Alabama.
Wilder defended his WBC title with a ninth-round KO of Eric Molina and collected his 33rd knockout victory out of 34 fights on Saturday. And although he knocked his man down four times, it was far from a vintage performance.
Wilder didn’t look like he trained with the same ferocity he did when he was preparing to take on former champion Bermane Stiverne in January.
Wilder weighed in at 219 lbs. for that fight. On Friday, Wilder was 229 lbs., a sign that he was overlooking Molina, who wobbled Wilder multiple times in the third round.
Speaking with World Boxing News, Browne was not impressed.
“Eric Molina put up a better showing than most expected and I take my hat off to him for that, but let’s be honest, he was handpicked to make Wilder look good,” Browne said.
“If I’d have hit Wilder with a hook like that one in the third, he wouldn’t have stayed on his feet. I think he’d probably still be asleep now.
“There’s been a lot of hype around Deontay. People have said he’s the savior of heavyweight boxing, but that performance just made me sad.
“I really can’t see what everyone sees in him. Every time I watch him, I spot flaws that I could exploit. He was lucky he was in with Molina because if he was facing me, he’d have been knocked cold.”
Browne is the mandatory challenger to the WBA World heavyweight title, which belongs to Ruslan Chagaev.
To clarify, Chagaev is in possession of the ‘regular World title,’ meanwhile Wladimir Klitschko, is in possession of the ‘Super World title.’
On February 25, the WBA Chagaev to defend the title against Browne, but he’s scheduled to fight European champion Francesco Pianeta on July 11 before that can happen.
Pianeta was stopped by Wladimir Klitschko two years ago.
Browne’s manager, Matt Clark, wants his fighter to stay focused on one guy for now.
“While we don’t want to take Lucas’s focus off Chagaev, we’d take a fight with Wilder in a heartbeat.
“Wilder has built up this reputation without being put in tough fights. Last night was another example of him looking ordinary against an opponent he was supposed to blast out.
“That left hook that wobbled him didn’t even look that hard to me. There is no doubt in my mind that if Lucas had been facing Wilder instead of Eric Molina, he’d be heavyweight champion.”
Everyone knows styles make fights.
At this juncture, I think both Wilder and Browne have their flaws, but Wilder would stop knock him out late in my perspective.
