This past Saturday night in Poland, heavyweight contender Martin Bakole blew away Ihor Shevadzutskyi in three quick rounds.
After the fight, Bakole called for fights with some of the biggest names in his division.
Bakole’s promoter, Ben Shalom of BOXXER, would like to get him in the ring with former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
Wilder is ranked at number 1 by the WBA, while Bakole is sitting at number 2.
Johnny Nelson, a Sky Sports pundit and former cruiserweight world champion, believes Wilder would entertain the idea of a fight with Bakole.
“Deontay Wilder may fancy it. Ben Shalom said on Saturday that he and Bakole were targeting Wilder and I think Wilder and his people will look at it and think he has the punch power to get rid of Bakole. Wilder did that with Luis Ortiz, something I really rated him for because Ortiz was certainly not in a slump in his career. Deontay has so much confidence in his raw power,” Nelson told Sky Sports.
“If that fight happened it would put everybody else to shame – the UK fighters at least. It would be impossible to ignore Bakole after a fight like that. We have seen what beats Wilder. Someone with smooth boxing skills. You can’t match him for power so you need to outbox and outmove him. Even if you are tough and durable, you cannot take the sort of shots Wilder will throw out.
“But don’t sleep on Bakole or you could be turned over. Saturday night showed how destructive he can be when he is on it. I also like his fearless approach. He has talked about what happens in sparring which you just don’t do. It’s like grassing on your mate! But he has to call these guys out to try and force them not to ignore him. He needs to embarrass them into fighting him.”