Wallin earned win Saturday but bigger fights will still be tough

Swedish heavyweight Contender Otto Wallin did his part Saturday night on the PBC on Showtime card in Connecticut. However it’s still a long shot that he will get a significant fight anytime in the near future.

First, Wallin, 21-1, 14 KOS, was impressive with a stiff right jab and the southpaw scored with hard left-right combinations behind it, as he systematically broke down fellow heavyweight contender, Travis Kauffman, and eventually stopped him in the fifth round

It was obvious that Kaufman had re-injured his previous surgically repaired shoulder from his last fight with Luis Ortiz in December of 2018. This, as he was unable to raise the arm to defend himself, Wallin realized it and continued to pepper him with right jabs and right hooks until referee Mark Ortega mercifully called it to a halt.

.@OttoWallin wins via stoppage as Travis Kauffman suffers a left arm injury in the 5th. #WallinKauffman pic.twitter.com/14U6WiEMjk

— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) August 16, 2020

The 29 year old, who now lives/trains in NYC, had been best known for having pushed Tyson Fury to a 12-round limit in a decision loss in Las Vegas in September of 2019. And, he would now very much love to get back in front of Fury in a rematch.

However, that’s not realistic as Fury’s next fight will be a third battle with former WBC Champion Deontay Wilder. And, it’s already well known that Fury and his management team of Frank Warren and Bob Arum have already agreed in principle for Fury to fight Unified Champ, Anthony Joshua, in a two fight series were “the Gypsy King” to defeat Wilder, again.

Wallin told the media on Zoom post fight,

“I want to go back to New York next and relax a little bit. I’ve been training for a long time now, almost a year. So I want to relax a little bit and hopefully I can fight again by the end of the year.”

It seems, for now, that Wallin will be destined to fight other PBC Heavyweights including potentially the likes of Robert Helenius. Helenius was last seen kayoing unbeaten Polish-American hard-puncher, Adam Kownacki in March, the week before the Covid 19 shutdown of the sport.

That’s not a high profile, lucrative battle, but it would likely end up as a co-feature or even a PBC main event for Wallin on a show later in the year, too.

And a win like that, would obviously get him closer to a more important battle in 2021.