Wilder strikes blow for U.S. heavyweights

Bermane Stiverne said it wouldn’t last long.

But he didn’t think it would be his reign as heavyweight champion of the world.

Stiverne, who won the World Boxing Council title May 10, held it for just over eight months, as Deontay Wilder totally outworked and outboxed the 36-year-old Las Vegas resident Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden to take his belt and become the first American to win a share of the heavyweight championship since Shannon Briggs was the World Boxing Organization champ in 2006.

Wilder, 29, who is from Tuscaloosa, Ala., won a 12-round unanimous decision to improve to 33-0. He also proved he could go beyond four rounds, something he had never done before Saturday.

“I think I answered a lot of questions,” Wilder said after judges’ scores of 120-107, 119-108 and 118-109 were announced. “We knew we could go 12 rounds. We knew we could take a punch.”

Both fighters predicted the bout wouldn’t go the distance. But Stiverne never got untracked, and he was having a tough time getting inside on Wilder, who had a 3-inch reach advantage and used it wisely to keep Stiverne at a safe distance. Wilder also used an effective left jab to set up his lethal right hand, which he used several times to hurt Stiverne.

Wilder almost had Stiverne finished in the seventh. He staggered him with a big overhand right to the head and continued the assault. Stiverne managed to stay on his feet but was clearly hurt. And any chance he had of getting back into the fight seemed to disappear after the seventh round.

“I think I spent too much time in the gym,” Stiverne said. “I started training in August for this fight, and I was ready to fight in November. Then we had to cut things back, and I wasn’t myself.

“I don’t want to take anything away from (Wilder). He fought a great fight. But it wasn’t my night. I felt 100 percent mentally, but I couldn’t cut the ring off like I usually do. I was throwing hard punches, but I could only throw two of them at a time. I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do.”

For Wilder, it was the realization of a dream that began after the 2008 Beijing Olympics when he turned pro. He fought a smart fight. He was the better man and was rewarded for his efforts.

“You’ve got to give Bermane credit; he was tough,” Wilder said. “But I wanted to show what Deontay Wilder can do, and I proved it.”

On the undercard, Leo Santa Cruz retained his WBC super bantamweight title with an eighth-round technical knockout of Jesus Ruiz.

Santa Cruz (29-0-1) survived a head butt to his right eye that opened a cut in the sixth round. But he dominated virtually every round and hurt Ruiz (32-6-5) late in the seventh round with two solid lefts.

He picked up where he left off to begin the eighth, stunning Ruiz with a straight left to the chin and following it with a flurry of punches, including a hard right that nearly buckled Ruiz’s knees.

Referee Kenny Bayless stopped the fight 29 seconds into the round. Santa Cruiz was ahead on the scorecards 69-63, 69-64 and 69-64 heading into the eighth round.

“I expected him to be tough,” Santa Cruz said. “I know I hurt him several times with the right hand, and if I kept hurting him, I knew the referee would have to stop it.”

Junior welterweight Amir Imam improved to 16-0 with a fifth-round technical knockout of Fidel Maldonado Jr. in a fight that saw five knockdowns, three in the third round.

Imam dropped Maldonado (19-3) late in the second round, only to get knocked down by Maldonado early in the third. But Imam came back and knocked down Maldonado twice later in the round. After the second one, Maldonado barely beat the bell to end the third.

The two weren’t shy in throwing and landing the big punch. In the end, Imam scored the biggest blow, as Maldonado missed with a right and Imam countered with a left to the chin that sent Maldonado down for the fourth time.

Referee Robert Byrd decided that Maldonado had taken enough punishment and stopped the fight at 2:59.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.