Povetkin too short for Deontay Wilder

I believe too much is being made of #1 WBC heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) being a threat to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs).

Povetkin, 36, is Wilder’s mandatory after beating a timid looking Mike Perez last year in May 2015. Ever
since Povetkin locked himself in as the mandatory challenger for Wilder, boxing fans have been saying that he’s going to KO Wilder and take his WBC strap. I don’t believe that for a second. I think this is going to be one of Wilder’s easier defenses, even easier than his victory over Johann Duhaupas last year in September.

Wilder says he wants to face Povetkin in April. The negotiations are currently underway between the management of the two fighters. I’m not sure that the fight will take place as early as April, but I can definitely see it taking place in May or June.

You can’t drag the fight out too far because Wilder needs to stay active and he’s got better fighters ahead of him once he gets the Povetkin defense out of the way. Wilder wants to fight the winner of the Tyson Fury vs.
Wladimir Klitschko rematch, and he also is interested in fighting a unification fight against IBF champion Charles Martin. I could also see Wilder taking on David Haye at some point once Haye wins enough fights to get boxing fans interested in him once again.

Now I want to get to the point of my article. As I said in the title, I think the 6’2” Povetkin is simply too short to beat Wilder. I mean, you got to have some height when you want to take on a guy as tall as the 6’7” Wilder, and I think Povetkin is just too short.

With Povetkin’s limited height, he needs to be going after the WBA “regular” champion Ruslan Chagaev,
because that’s someone that he matches up with because Chagaev is only 6’1”. If Povetkin were to face Chagaev, he could beat him and take over as being a pretty much invisible champion.

“Why would I give it up when I’m trying to unify (all the heavyweight belts)?” Wilder said to RingTV.com about him not willing to give up his WBC title to avoid the Povetkin fight. “It don’t make no sense. So I’m going to give it up to get one belt and then come back around to take the other belt and then go get the other one?”

As far as I can tell, Chagaev rarely is mentioned when boxing fans and the media talk about the various champions in the heavyweight division. The main guys that get mentioned is Wilder, Fury and Charles Martin.
That’s why I think Povetkin is out of his lane/league by looking to challenge Wilder for his title, because he’s facing the wrong guy. Povetkin needs to be fighting the mini-heavyweight champion Chagaev. He already beat him once before in a very, very close fight, and I think he could probably beat him again if he’s lucky.

I see the Wilder-Povetkin fight going badly for Povetkin with him getting out-boxed initially and then stomped by Wilder in the last four rounds of the fight. Wladimir Klitschko had Povetkin up and down on the canvas like a yo-yo in their fight in 2013 in beating him by a lopsided 12 round decision. The thing about that fight is that Wladimir hardly threw any punches, but each time he would throw them, Povetkin would drop to the canvas. It was almost comical to watch.