Wilder vs. Breazeale – All Access on May 10

By Jim Dower

Showtime Sports will putting on an “ALL ACCESS” premier on May 10 for WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s next title defense against mandatory Dominic Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs) on May 18 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The ALL Access, Wilder vs. Breazeale, will start at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT on May 10 on Showtime.

This will be the unbeaten Wilder’s ninth defense of his World Boxing Council heavyweight title he won four years ago in beating Bermane Stiverne in 2015. The All Access episode will preview the training and the behind the scenes issues that Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) and 2012 U.S Olympian Breazeale go through to get read for the interesting fight on Showtime.

Both of these giant heavyweights are 6’7″, both U.S Olympians in the past, both they’re coming into their fight with a KO percentage of 90. Wilder knockout percentage is 95%, and Breazeale’s is 86%. Breazeale isn’t considered a huge puncher in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans, but he clearly has respectable punching power that has led him this far. Only three fighters have escaped from being knocked out by Breazeale during his career and they are as follows: Anthony Joshua, Fred Kassi and Nagy Aguilera. The only guys that have gone the distance with Wilder is Tyson Fury and Bermane Stiverne.

The May 10th ALL ACCESS episode will let viewers see Wilder and Breazeale get focused in training camp, and let people hear what they have to say about each other. There’s true bad blood between these two guys, and it’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say. Breazeale wants to defeat Wilder, and take his WBC title to face IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua in a unification fight. Joshua stopped Breazeale in the seventh round in a fight that took place three years ago in June 2016.

Showtime’s ALL ACCESS crew will be filming in Wilder’s hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. There will also be filming in the Bay Arena in Northern California for Breazeale’s camp at Virgil Hunter’s gym in Hayward.

“I hope he’s training his hardest. I’m glad he has Virgil Hunter on his side to show him something new,” Wilder said about Breazeale. “Every man I’ve faced; they’ve landed on the canvas. I’m going to continue to do that on May 18.”

If Breazeale is to have a chance of winning this fight, he’s going to have to start a lot faster than he did in his title challenge against IBF champion Anthony Joshua. Breazeale talked a good game before that fight, but then he did nothing in the fight and let Joshua dominate him. Breazeale looked timid at the kickoff news conference with Wilder last March. Wilder had Breazeale appearing like he was afraid of getting swatted by him, especially when the two were standing for a face off.

Breazeale will be coming into the fight with Wilder with a three fight winning streak with wins over Izuagbe Ugonoh, Eric Molina and Carlos Negron. Breazeale has turned his career around with those good victories to put himself back into another world title fight.

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