By Geno McGahee
Heavyweight contender, Dillian Whyte, 28-2, 19 KO’s, avenged his knockout loss and regained his WBC interim heavyweight title with a knockout victory over Alexander Povetkin, 36-3-1, 25 KO’s. It was a one-sided beat down without much drama and without any return from the man that had just laid out Whyte not so long ago.
Initially, I had picked Povetkin to win the rematch, but then I saw the weigh in and changed my choice. Povetkin looked thin and he didn’t have that muscular physique that he brought into every fight. He looked like a thin old man and Whyte looked like a beast. You could almost see the defeat in Povetkin’s face at that time and there wasn’t any confidence when he finally got into the ring.
Whyte sensed that spent force in front of him and attacked immediately. He wasn’t landing a lot but Povetkin had no balance and was stumbling all over the ring. When he finally threw punches, they weren’t the clubbing shots that he had thrown in fights prior to this.
In the fourth round, Whyte finally put Povetkin out of his misery and dropped him with a barrage of punches. His corner immediately threw in the towel before the count was even done. They knew something was wrong with Povetkin. In no other fight had they ever behaved his way. This is a guy that went 12 rounds with Wladimir Klitschko and gave Anthony Joshua hell. He came off the floor twice to knockout Dillian Whyte. For them to throw in the towel, they knew it just wasn’t there.
This was a case of a motivated good heavyweight facing a totally spent force. Whyte is back on track to go after the bigger names in the division and Povetkin needs to retire. If he’s foolish enough to return, he could get seriously hurt.
