By David Martinez / dmboxing.com

On Saturday night February 25, 2017 Deontay Wilder (38-0 / 37 by KO), losing on all scorecards and all of the four rounds, came back to stop challenger Gerald Washington (18-1-1 / 12 by KO).

A right hand that followed with a left hook in the fifth round dropped Washington and when he rose, Wilder continued with a array of punches and landed a hard right hand as the bout was stopped at 1:45 of the round.

At the start and through four rounds Washington was focused and kept the pressure on Wilder at his pace. But it was clear that Wilder was not to be denied in the 5th defense of his WBC heavyweight championship belt and at his home, Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. The bout was shown on national television on PBC-FOX.

On the under card Jarrett Hurd (20-0 / 14 by KO) came from behind in the scoring to win the vacant IBF junior middleweight belt by stopping Tony Harrison (24-2 / 20 by KO) when he dropped Harrison in round nine. Harrison got up before being counted out, but when the referee asked him if he could continue, and it appeared that he could, he spit his mouth piece out in an apparent effort to gain more time.  At that point, the referee called a halt the bout at 2:24.

In the opening TV bout, Dominic Breazeale (18-1 / 16 by KO) and Izuabe Ugonoh (17-1 / 14 by KO) engaged in an action packed heavyweight bout.

With Ugonoh down in round three and Breazeale down in round four, this fight was a matter of who would throw the next big punch.

After four rounds, my scorecard had Ugonoh ahead 38-36, three rounds to one. But Breazeale came out strong in round five, connecting the bigger punches to drop Ugonoh. He continued with a barrage of punches that knocked Ugonoh through the ring ropes leading the referee to halt the bout at 0:50 of round five.