Deontay Wilder returns, haney & kambosas rematch in Saturday boxing schedule

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Deontay Wilder simply has a pure star quality that not many fighters of the modern age have had. Wilder is charismatic, can bounce between very likable and villainous, and, well, is a heavyweight with monstrous punching power in both hands, but especially his cannon right.

Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KO) will fight someone other than Tyson Fury for the first time in 2019, as Robert Helenius (31-3, 20 KO) has been drafted in as the comeback foe for the “Bronze Bomber.” The 38-year-old “Nordic Nightmare” isn’t a scrub, but a borderline top 10 guy at best, coming off of back-to-back smashings that fully derailed the career of Adam Kownacki.

While Helenius is plenty tall at a listed 6’6½”, he doesn’t carry the weight of Fury; Helenius will come in somewhere around 240-245, while Fury used every bit of his 273 and 277 lbs in his latter two fights with Wilder to make a difference in a few key ways.

It will be interesting, on that weight note, to see where Wilder is at. He was in the 230s for his last two bouts with Fury, but those were abnormally high weights for him, and he honestly seems more comfortable somewhere around 215-225 or so.

If Wilder is successful in this return, PBC have a ready-made WBC eliminator to make between Deontay and Andy Ruiz Jr, two former titleholders, which could, in theory, lead to Fury vs Wilder 4 in the back end of 2023. That may seem unlikely, as what business is left unfinished there, but remember that we’re apparently getting Fury vs Chisora 3 in the back end of 2022.

Also Happening: Haney vs Kambosos 2

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This is also happening. It has to, because to secure the first fight earlier this year with George Kambosos Jr, Devin Haney had to sign off on a rematch clause. He did, and he and his father Bill were both adamant that doing it twice was no big concern for them, something they even welcomed because they’d made a good money deal.

Once Haney (28-0, 15 KO) had gotten done outclassing Kambosos (20-1, 10 KO) in June, the Haney side badly wanted to find any way out of the rematch, but there never was one other than vacating all the belts and going up to 140, and Kambosos definitely wasn’t going to pass on the biggest fight he can possibly get just because it may not be particularly marketable to American fans.

That said, and not to defend this fight as attractive right now so much as just point something out: What ESPN main events are better than this one lately? How many main events in general are pitting two guys who are top five at their weight? In two weeks, the ESPN main event is Vasiliy Lomachenko vs Jamaine Ortiz. Upcoming Top Rank main events include Teofimo Lopez vs Jose Pedraza and Janibek Alimkhanuly vs Denzel Bentley.

Yeah, it’s “unnecessary,” but a harsh reality is that Devin Haney probably wouldn’t be in a better fight right now if this weren’t happening. Maybe it’d be Lomachenko, maybe not! He might have wanted a fight like Jamaine Ortiz first anyway, and it wasn’t going to be Tank Davis or Ryan Garcia.

Basically, let’s get this done, and if Devin wins handily again, then maybe early next year we have Haney vs Lomachenko.