Wach: Miller’s head will explode

By Przemek Garczarczyk
Photo: Ed Mulholland/HBO

6’7 Polish heavyweight Mariusz Wach (33-2, 17 KO) is very confident that his size and experience will be enough to beat undefeated Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller (19-0, 17 KO) on Saturday night’s HBO telecast from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

You arrived in New York 10 days before fight ready to go…

Exactly. I arrived last week on Wednesday, couple of workouts, then on Saturday I had a good, and tough six-round sparring with Bryant Jennings. That was the last part of fight preparations. Since then, it’s more about being fresh, working on my speed, reflexes than anything else.

Your last win was eight months ago against solid Erkan Teper. Miller is a different fighter altogether, but could you compare training camps for these two fights?

We had enough time to get prepared for Miller. I spent some time sparring with Tony Yoka, I had a good camp in Poland leading to my arrival in New York. I have everything under control. Everything works.

Any particular Big Baby fights that caught your attention?

The last one because he had at least decent opponent. We had something to work with, made some observations – his previous fights were worthless. It was enough for Miller to show up to get KO. I don’t pay too much attention to his predictions of making 60-70 punches a round. First two, three rounds – maybe. Then his head will explode, round eight will be happening and he will be confused what to do next. He never had a fight with so many thrown punches, so how he can predict how his body will react? I have to stay in control the first couple of rounds, hit him a couple of times to not get him too confident, and then the finishing rounds will be all mine. He will be back to his old himself by then.

Will it be all about experience?

That and my size, reach and style. You cannot prepare for long fights, championship rounds in training camp. I don’t pay any attention to all these speculations what status (in the rankings) my fight with Miller will have. It’s the promoter’s job. The job for me is to win on Saturday, start talking about future later.