By: Sean Crose
“I have to beat a Brit,” says undefeated heavyweight Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, “if I do that, a lot will change.” Miller, who will be facing Bogdan Dinu on November 17th in Kansas, is looking to land a match against heavyweight kingpin Anthony Joshua, who is now a huge star in England.” When you are high risk, low reward,” says Miller, “people will make excuses not to fight you and the fans will buy into it.” Joshua, who can sell out stadiums in Britain, has a line of potential opponents hungry to face him, among them American standout Deontay Wilder.
As Matchroom Boxing, which is affiliated with Miller, states: “Anthony Joshua returns to Wembley Stadium in London on April 13 to put his IBF, WBA and WBO straps on the line.” Miller would love the chance to face Joshua, of course, but understands that fight may not happen – at least not on that date. And so Miller is not afraid to set his sights on other foes. “I am not afraid of Dillian,” Miller says of another potential Joshua oppoenent, Dilian Whyte. “I’m afraid of no man. If AJ is not ready to face me with a title, then I’ll go and whoop Dillian’s butt. It’ll help my profile in Britain.”
“He’s a clown,” Miller says of Whyte, who has already lost to Joshua once before. “Nobody is afraid of him. He’s got a win over Lucas Browne and that’s it. For him to call people punks, he’s deluded, I’ve fought three World title contenders back to back. He turned down Mariusz Wach twice and he didn’t really want to fight Duhaupas, he’s naive.” Miller is clearly a student of the fight game. ““The big fights take some maneuvering and finessing,” he says, “so building my profile, winning the regular title and getting into a mandatory spot is going to help me in that situation.”
“I think I will definitely be in a spot to have an AJ or Deontay Wilder fight later in the year,” he says, “so I need to get this win in Kansas and stay busy, focused, injury free and ready.” Miller knows it would be unwise to overlook Dinu, an 18-0 Romanian, with 14 knockouts on his resume. “Bogdan is aggressive,” the 20-0-1 Brooklyn natives says, “but that’s against guys that want to survive…he’s going to try to move against me, everybody does, but then they all end up running for their lives – and they can only run for so long.”
Miller, who has won all but two of his bouts by knockout, will be one of the highlights of Saturday’s card at the Kansas Star Arena in Mulvane, Kansas. Claressa Shields will also be fighting, as will Brandon Rios. DAZN will be airing the festivities live starting at 10 PM Eastern Standard Time.