Deontay Wilder vs. Malik Scott

There have been whispers for weeks, growing louder and hitting a fever pitch today.

Reportedly this is very close to being finalized as the co-feature to Danny Garcia vs. Mauricio Herrera on March 15th in PR.

Scott returned quietly on the non-televised undercard of FNF last week, knocking out Grover Young in two rounds. Young has rarely been stopped but is quite undersized at heavyweight and has been in with the likes of WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev and super middleweight prospect Badou Jack.

Wilder is coming off a relatively 'big' 2013 with a series of whack-a-mole knockouts over Audley Harrison, Sergei Liakhovich and Nicolai Firtha.

Scott and Wilder are friends. Usually when friends box, everybody loses...most of all the viewers. :-((

Also, the customary advantage in size and length for Wilder is going to be far less pronounced than usual. Scott is among the first opponents he will ever have to be close to a match for his measurements, and will furthermore be the slickest defensively (and best at neutralizing offense at long range with his jab and movement) by an extremely wide margin.

While a rabbit punch knockout for Wilder is certainly a possibility, given how Scott was undone versus Chisora (leaving aside the issue of the ref's count) - it actually wouldn't be a shock if this went the full distance and provided little to nothing in the way of fireworks, should the pals come to a 'silent agreement' to basically get paid for a light spar.

 

There wouldn't necessarily have to be any backstage dealing per se, they could both just in the moment pull their punches and let opportunities to land cleanly slip by all night because they're reluctant to hurt each other. We have seen it play out that way too many times...

Usually the more loudly they insist with the "this is a business, our friendship has no bearing on competitive desire, we are going to put it on hold and treat each other as enemies from bell to bell and then pick up as we left off afterward" rhetoric, the worse a disappointment it turns out to be.

Both have been starting in on all that noise already on social media...

 

That would be great, especially if the end result was bringing us Glazkov vs. Scott II and some closure between them.

 

I don't even think he is necessarily featherfisted, probably closer to average hitting, more that he just doesn't give a **** about doing anything but putting on jabbing clinics. Same deal as Kingpin Johnson (who occasionally shows flashes of right hand power and leaves some people flabbergasted)