Deontay Wilder talks about smashing giant burrito mascot

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder hurt a mascot dressed as a giant burrito during a recent interview with Nacion ESPN. The news about the incident said that Wilder had broken the mascot’s jaw when flooring him with a big right hand.

Apparently, Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) wasn’t informed that the person inside the giant burrito costume wasn’t wearing padding to protect him when he unleashed a right hand that hit him. The punch is said to have hit the mascot on the chin, causing him to hit the deck like a rock and not get up.

The obvious question is why didn’t the hosts at Nacion ESPN let Wilder know that he should hold back when hitting the person in the burrito costume? It looked like it was setup badly. It not only put the person in the costume at risk, but Wilder as well, because he could have injured his hand when he threw the punch with his right hand. Wilder’s main weapon in his arsenal is his right hand. If he had injured his hand, he might derailed his big mega-fight on Showtime PPV with Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs), which is set for December 1 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

“Man, people have been going crazy about that burrito,” Wilder said to the dailymail. “I never did anything like that before and I said, “Yeah cool let’s make it happen”. So once I got to select where I got to hit him, I told them: “I’m a headhunter, I like to knock you out…I thought there was going to be more cushion or whatever, but when I hit him it was like another opponent, it was crazy. They said I hit him on the chin, I think he was a little bit dazed at first.”

This is a good learning experience for Wilder. If he’s asked to hit a mascot in the future by an interviewer, he needs to hold back and decline the offer. Wilder’s hands are dangerous weapons, and he doesn’t need to be risking injury hitting objects or people dressed in costumes.

Arum wants Alex Saucedo to face Jose Ramirez in unification match if he beats Maurice Hooker on November 16

Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank plans on matching unbeaten Alex Saucedo (28-0, 18 KOs) against WBC light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez (23-0, 16 KOs) if Alex defeats WBO 140 lb champion Maurice Hooker (24-0-3, 16 KOs) on November 16 at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Saucedo, 24, is Hooker’s World Boxing Organization mandatory challenger, according to ESPN. Arum promotes both Saucedo and Ramirez with his Top Rank company. The idea is for Ramirez and Saucedo to meet up in a unification fight in the first part of 2019 if everything goes right for Alex against Hooker in November. If Hooker wins the fight, then he’ll move on and Arum’s plans of a Ramirez-Saucedo unification fight will be temporarily foiled. Arum likely won’t give up on his dream of putting Ramirez and Saucedo in with each other, but things will be more complicated, because Hooker is arguably the weak link among the champions at 140 at the moment. WBA ‘regular’ champion Kiryl Relikh is taking part in the World Boxing Super Series light welterweight tournament, and he’s expected to lose his title when he meets up with the likes of Josh Taylor or Regis Prograis. The winner of the tournament would likely be too touch a nut for Saucedo to crack, so Arum probably won’t risk putting hi in with the WBSS winner.

“Definitely, and by the future (I mean) sometime before the end of next year. Not a lot of marinating,” Arum said to espn.com about wanting to make the Ramirez vs. Saucedo fight. “We don’t marinate anymore. We’re out of that business.”

It doesn’t pay off to marinate fights. Arum has learned that lesson the hard way when he tried to let a fight between Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa marinate, and the bout never happened because JuanMa was beaten twice in a row by Orlando Salido.

Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez vs. Jessie Hart 2 official for December 14 – winner possibly faces IBF super middleweight champion Jose Uzcategui in unification fight in 2019

In other boxing news, Arum says WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (38-0, 25 KOs) and Jesse Hart (25-1, 21 KOs) are now official for December 14, and will be facing each other in the headliner fight on ESPN+ at the Bank of America Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. Arum, 86, hasn’t made an official news announcement for the Ramirez-Hart 2 rematch, but the fight is done.

Arum wants the winner of the Ramirez-Hart II fight to face IBF 168 lb champion Jose Uzcategui in a unification fight in 2019.

Last year, Ramirez defeated Hart by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that was very close at the end in September 2017. Hart was knocked down in the 2nd round by Ramirez, but then he came back to hurt the Mexican fighter several times in the fight with uppercuts. Hart has won his last three bouts by stoppage and looked good.

Arum didn’t enter Ramirez in the recent World Boxing Super Series super middleweight tournament, a move that has a lot of fans wonder why. Had Ramirez competed in the WBSS tourney, he would have mixed it up with the likes of Callum Smith, Chris Eubank Jr. and George Groves. Facing those fighters would have helped Ramirez’s career if he had won the tournament. Smith wound up capturing the tournament by stopping Groves in the 7th round last September. It’s unfortunate that Arum didn’t put Ramirez in the tournament, because the American boxing fan could have seen how he would have done against the big punchers Groves and Smith. Even a fight between Ramirez and Eubank Jr. would have been interesting to watch for the fans. Arum would like to put Ramirez in with former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, but that match is less appealing now that GGG has come up empty twice in fights against Saul Canelo Alvarez. Golden Boy Promotions aren’t likely to match the 5’8″ Canelo against the 6’2 1/2″ Ramirez due to the size problem that he would have to deal with if he took that fight.