Jennings wants title shot … but he’s willing to wait for it
Asked who the best heavyweight in the world is, Bryant Jennings — who faces undefeated Oscar Rivas (25-0, 17 KOs) on Friday at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, New York — delivered an emphatic reply.
“Me! Me!,” stated Jennings (24-2, 14 KOs), who doesn’t want to hear about the likes of Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury or anyone else in the division, for that matter.
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“No, no, my world revolves around me and in every aspect, my coaches, my managers, when it comes down to me, my events — it’s me,” he continued. “That’s it, that’s all I’m worried about, and once my show’s over, everybody goes back to their lives and just really go back to the rotation. But when we’re working, we got something coming up and we’re in camp … it’s all about me. I don’t care about nobody else.”
So, this is Jennings’ world and everyone is just living in it. As he embarks on 2019, does the native of Philadelphia have any particular goals?
“Just hoping to progress and of course, land that tile shot, land that big shot,” Jennings said. “I’m really close, these dudes ain’t that good. Ranking-wise, politically, I’m right there.”
And Jennings, who is promoted by Top Rank, is listed in the rankings by all four major sanctioning bodies (WBC: 13th, WBA: 7th, IBF: 9th and WBO: 2nd).
Like most everyone else in the sport, he was an interested observer of the Dec. 1 clash between WBC titleholder Deontay Wilder and lineal champion Tyson Fury. The fight ended in a disputed draw at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
“My whole thing was there was great power with Wilder, great boxing in Tyson,” Jennings said when asked for his thoughts on that contest. “I knew (Fury) was going to come ready because I knew he wasn’t going to half-ass himself. Those guys went out and did their best. I think it was a good effort.”
As far as who he thinks won?
“Tyson Fury won that fight,” Jennings said. “But look, I don’t even really care about that. My whole thing is about what I’ve got to do, unless we’re facing him, then it’s something worth talking about.”
Jennings is angling for a title shot. Currently, it’s Joshua (who has the WBA, IBF and WBO straps) and Wilder who rule the division. Jennings has no preference on who he’d like to face at some point this year.
“Would it matter? There’s only two people holding the belt, so it’s OK,” Jennings said.
Jennings had a productive 2018 that saw him defeat the trio of Akhror Muralimov (KO3), Joey Dawejko (W10) and Alexander Dimitrenko (TKO9). His career had gotten off track after a rough 2015, in which he lost to Wladimir Klitschko for the heavyweight title and to Luis Ortiz, who stopped him in seven rounds. Jennings was sidelined for all of 2016, as he squabbled with Gary Shaw, who was promoting him at the time. By 2017, Jennings had signed a promotional deal with Top Rank.
Bryant Jennings sends Alexander Dimitrenko to the canvas with a huge uppercut. Dimitrenko is upset that the ref stops the fight.
“He’s almost under the radar, he’s almost back in the radar system,” said his trainer, John David Jackson. “I think 2019 is his year to break out and get back amongst the elite of the heavyweight division.”
Jackson, who during his days as a prizefighter was a junior middleweight world titlist, has been working with Jennings for just over three years. Their relationship got off to a rather inglorious start as they began with the Ortiz fight.
“It’s a fight that I didn’t want,” Jackson explained. “I told him, ‘I don’t want this fight for you,’ and he said, ‘John, it’s the only fight they’re going to get me’ and so he had no other choice. So we took the fight, he did fairly well, he got caught with a shot he shouldn’t have got caught with and the rest is history, we lost the fight.
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“But since that point, he’s improved a lot. It’s been a slow improvement but it’s coming together for him, and the things he’s doing in camp for this fight are the things he needs to do as a professional fighter. I’m showing him how to fight on the inside now and different things.”
Jennings began boxing at the age of 24. Though he was from a fighting city, he was focused on basketball, football and track and field while at Franklin High. His amateur career lasted all of 17 fights before he turned pro in 2010.
“So he learned as he went along and so it was kind of rushed in the beginning,” said Jackson, who believes his pupil is finally starting to pick up the nuances of the game. “He never had a chance to really get together and learn the game. He’s really improving a lot.”
It’s clear that Jennings has natural athleticism, but he lacks the instincts that many of his heavyweight colleagues possess as a result of spending their lifetimes in the gym. There is still a paint-by-numbers quality to the way he goes about fighting. Things don’t flow as naturally to him as they do to more seasoned boxers. Jennings is still learning to master the fundamentals and apply them intuitively in live competition.
To his credit, he was still able to go the distance with Klitschko and put up a respectable effort over 12 rounds. Jennings may not be great, but he has become a pretty solid heavyweight.
“That wasn’t even a loss,” he said of his experience versus Klitschko back in 2015. “That was just part of the progress, so I’m a better fighter, I’m a more experienced fighter. It happened almost four years ago.”
And given his late start in the sport, Jennings doesn’t have the miles on the odometer like most boxers his age. He describes himself as “a young 34,” and with that, he’s in no particular rush.
“Nah, the game is wide open,” he said. “You don’t see the game as wide open? The game is wide open and the only reason that some could actually hold [the title] for a long period of time is through political status and technicalities and stuff like that. To be honest, Wilder lost against Fury but the game is the way it is, it’s the way it’s going to be.
“I don’t feel no sense of urgency, I really don’t give two sh— about it. I just want to secure the legacy, secure the bag and put a stamp on my team’s legacy.”
So, how does that process occur?
“Obviously he has to come through this fight with a victory and if he fights the way he has lately and looks good in the victory, I think that despite the different sides of the fence that may exist in the sport, that when it comes to heavyweights, he obviously propels himself as a legitimate heavyweight challenger for any of these titles,” said Carl Moretti, vice president of boxing operations for Top Rank.
Given the alliances that exist in the sport, and the fact that neither Joshua nor Wilder is promoted by Top Rank, Jennings will most likely have to become the mandatory challenger to receive his desired title shot.
“That’s part of it,” Moretti admitted. “It’s obviously more time and everything else, but I think if you don’t see Fury and Wilder made again, and you don’t see Joshua and Wilder, then he’s as good as anybody else on the list to fight and you just go from there.”