By Keith Idec
Dominic Breazeale will have to get through one of Deontay Wilder’s knockout victims to move toward his own WBC heavyweight title shot.
BoxingScene.com has learned Breazeale will box Eric Molina on the Wilder-Bermane Stiverne undercard November 4 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Breazeale (18-1, 16 KOs), of Eastvale, California, was scheduled to fight Las Vegas’ Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs), but Stiverne replaced Luis Ortiz as Wilder’s opponent in the main event once Ortiz tested positive for two banned substances late last month.
The 6-feet-7, 260-pound Breazeale’s lone loss came against Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs), who stopped Breazeale in the seventh round of their IBF title fight in June 2016 at O2 Arena in London. The 6-feet-4, 240-pound Molina (26-4, 19 KOs), of Weslaco, Texas, has been knocked out in the ninth round by Wilder and was stopped by Joshua in the third round.
If Breazeale and Wilder win November 4, it could set up Wilder’s next title defense. Breazeale and Wilder got into an altercation in at a Birmingham hotel following Wilder’s last title defense, a fifth-round stoppage of Gerald Washington (18-2-1, 12 KOs) on February 25 at Legacy Arena.
Breazeale beat Poland’s Izu Ugonoh (17-1, 14 KOs) by fifth-round knockout on the Wilder-Washington undercard.
The Breazeale-Molina match will be televised by Showtime Extreme, before the telecast switches over to Showtime for a tripleheader that’ll feature the Wilder-Stiverne rematch.
Stiverne, the mandatory challenger for Wilder’s WBC heavyweight title, is the only opponent Wilder hasn’t knocked out during his pro career. Wilder defeated Stiverne by 12-round unanimous decision to win the WBC title in January 2015 in Las Vegas.
Showtime also will air a 10-round welterweight bout between former IBF 147-pound champion Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs) and Adrian Granados (18-5-2, 12 KOs). The tripleheader will start with Kazakhstan’s Sergey Lipinets (12-0, 10 KOs) and Japan’s Akihiro Kondo (29-6-1, 16 KOs) in a 12-round, 140-pound fight for the vacant IBF junior welterweight title.
The November 4 undercard will include the return of Long Island light heavyweight Sean Monaghan as well. Monaghan (28-1, 17 KOs) will try to bounce back from a second-round technical knockout loss to Staten Island’s Marcus Browne (20-0, 15 KOs) in his last fight, July 15 in Uniondale, New York.
Also on the November 4 undercard, Brooklyn’s Amanda Serrano (33-1-1, 25 KOs) is set to meet Marylin Hernandez (26-10, 17 KOs), of the Dominican Republic.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
