Tag Archives: Dominic breazeale

Posted on 02/19/2021

By: Hans Themistode

It isn’t exactly easy finding someone who’s nearly seven feet tall and really knows how to fight. Being wrapped up in a global pandemic doesn’t help either.

For heavyweight contender Otto Wallin, that is the precise predicament he found himself in. The heavyweight contender sat back in his palatial estate and wondered who could he call to help assist him as he prepared to take on Dominic Breazeale this Saturday night at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville Connecticut. After scrolling through his phonebook a little while, Wallin found the exact name he was looking for.

“Me and Adam (Kownacki) had some great sparring,” said Wallin during an interview with BoxingInsider.com. “We sparred four or five times. Adam is a tough guy, he comes forward and throws a lot of punches. He’s not as big as Breazeale but he puts pressure on you and Breazeale also tries to put pressure on his opponent so that was good for me.”

While Kownacki’s six-feet three-inch frame falls four inches short of Breazeale, the Polish native gave Wallin exactly what he was looking for. Opportunities to face top ten contenders haven’t exactly fallen in the lap of Wallin. At least, not recently.

Outside of Wallin’s much talked about contest against WBC and Ring magazine titlist Tyson Fury in September of 2019, the Swedish product has fought just once in the span of two years, a fifth-round stoppage win against Travis Kauffman roughly six months ago. Much like Wallin though, Breazeale has also grown accustomed to sitting on the sidelines for long stretches as his last contest came approximately two years ago against Deontay Wilder, a showdown Breazeale would ultimately lose in the first round.

For Wallin (21-1, 14 KOs), his latest string of inactivity is a pattern that he shakes his head at. Simply put, the heavyweight contender wants to fight.

Now however, with the chance to kick off his 2021 by jumping into the ring early, Wallin is hoping to build a bit of momentum by being seen more inside the ring and doing plenty of damage once he walks through those ropes.

“I haven’t been able to be that busy these last few years. I had one fight last year and one fight the year before that. If I can put in a great performance here and stop Breazeale that would be great for me. I think I would be able to pick up a lot of new fans. This is a big chance for me so I’m hoping that I can grab it with two hands.”

There will be no pity pat punches coming from Wallin’s side of the ring come tomorrow night. The soon to be 31-year-old knows good and well that if he doesn’t do something drastic come fight night, that there’s a good chance that he can and will be passed in the pecking order for a title shot.

That, on the other hand, won’t happen if Wallin gets fans to jump out of their seats with an eye-catching stoppage victory.

“Knockouts sell and that’s something that I want to do. He’s a big guy and a pretty good puncher. He’s also really dangerous when he’s hurt so I have to be smart but I think I can break him down and stop him.”

Posted on 02/27/2017

The Wilder-Breazeale Melee: Families Should Be Off Limits
By: Sean Crose

This sort of thing happens. What’s more, it’s happened since the early days of boxing. Back in the late 1800s, James J Corbett nearly threw down with Bob Fitzimmons on a stretch of road in the leadup to their heavyweight title matchup. Since then, boxing has provided the world with more out of the ring, inappropriate antics than most could imagine. Some of us may well remember Mike Tyson’s off the wall New York brawl with Mitch Green…or Larry Holmes’ WWE maneuver on Trevor Berbick. Again, such things are part of boxing.

The out of the ring melee that apparently went down Saturday night between the camps of heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and contender Dominic Breazeale, however, seems to have involved Breazeale’s children – and that’s not acceptable. “I want to address the fact,” Breazeale tweeted, “that Deontay Wilder and a mob of about 20 people unprovokedly attacked my Team and my family in the lobby last night.” According to Breazeale, he and his coach were struck in front of Breazeale’s wife and kids in the lobby of a hotel. TMZ has run some confusing footage of the chaos, but it’s hard to discern much of anything on screen.

It’s important to keep in mind that there is no definitive proof of anyone actually doing anything criminal after Saturday’s fight card in Alabama (where both Breazeale and Wilder won in impressive fashion). All there essentially is at this point is TMZ and the words of some of those involved. That’s really not a lot to go on. Still, all camps should clear the air about this. Explanations need to be given and, yeah, apologies need to be made. Causing madness in hotel lobbies is simply inappropriate.

Again, this sort of thing happens. Boxing is a tough sport where some very tough people get very psyched up. Such incidents are perhaps probably only natural considering the frame of mind your average fighter must put himself in. Restraint, however, is needed – especially when innocent people can be hurt. And this is particularly true in the case of children. Some things can’t and shouldn’t be laughed off. And if Dominic Breazeale is right in his assertion of what happened on Saturday (and I’m not saying he is), people should be called out and held accountable for it.

In other words, this sort of thing should be saved for the ring.