Best of the Rest: The Heavyweight Division
Where better a place to start than with the man who will challenge Anthony Joshua for the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO world titles on September 22nd – Alexander Povetkin.
Next out on October 6th, Miller is at the stage of his career where he needs to fight legitimate Top 15 contenders – Carlos Takam is a name that comes to mind – in order to prove that he’s more than first impressions would suggest and really catapult him into the top brass of this division.
A former interim WBA World Heavyweight champion, the power of the Cuban is undeniable – as we saw in back-to-back destructions of Martias Ariel Vidondo, Bryant Jennings and Tony Thompson in a five month period between October 2015 and March 2016.
At least that’s what we thought until he got in the ring with Dillian Whyte in a fight that, whilst still not superfluously impressive, answered a few questions with regards David Higgins’ poster boy – for the first time in a long time we saw the power that Parker packs as he rattled Whyte, dropping him in the process, and rallied for an absolute barnstormer of a final two rounds.
That Takam fight, let’s be clear, wasn’t all Dereck, either, but he looked cool, he looked breezy and he finished the job with a scintillating knockout in a fashion that made Anthony Joshua’s victory over Takam look, well, mediocre.
