Bermane showed zero attributes or ability to close the distance to a taller fighter. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Alexander Dimitrenko owned Bermane. Stivirne never cut off the ring, no jab, no head movement, slow feet, no body work, very low work rate. He just slowly plodded forward with hands up doing nothing. Bermane had one of the worst displays of boxing that I have ever seen in any title fight and that is the truth.
Bermane did absolutely everything very poorly that you would need to close the distance on a taller fighter. It was an completely horrible performance. Don't cut off the ring. ✓ Don't move your head. ✓ Don't use the jab. ✓ Don't go to the body. ✓ Slowly plod forward. ✓ And the few times you do get in close despite doing everything so bad, make sure to have a very low work rate. ✓ Etc, etc.
He was a slow punch bag who followed Wilder around. Wilder couldn't ask for a better strategy from Stiverne.
That's like saying Algieri put on a horrible performance and did absolutely nothing you'd need to do to beat pacquiao. All while ignoring the fact pacquiao is just much better than Algieri, maybe wilder is just much better than stiverne.
we can say pac is much better then chris because of what he has done in the past like beat a rated 3 p4p Bradley in his prime but wilder is a different story because we don't know how good he is so it leaves the question did stiverne just have a bad night?
Bermane didn't even try to do anything that is needed to close the distance on a taller fighter. His gameplan was to slowly plod forward with his hands up and wait to counter punch. I am not sure Bermane could beat Alexander Dimitrenko. He needs someone to come to him, or he can't counter punch. His style can't work against any decent tall HW. It was horrible performance. Algieri tried to fight the right fight and use his reach & movement on the outside. Bermane just fought the opposite of what he needed. It would of been more like if Algieri decicded that his gameplan should be to stand in the middle of the ring and exhcange bombs with Pac.
Well styles make fights don't they, joe Frazier could never beat george foreman with his style, would you expect him to become a lateral movement jabber for one fight? Probably not. Wilder beat stiverne because stiverne has always had a low work rate and was getting his head jabbed off every time he was remotely in range.
He definitely could have fought better. The first 3 rounds he seemed to have forgotten how to throw a jab. In the 4th when he started throwing the jab he unsurprisingly was able to force Wilder to back up to the ropes where he was finally able to land some punches. Wilder moved laterally but very predictably, he never mixed up the direction he was moving, once he decided to go left for right he stuck with it so Stiverne should have been able to cut off the ring more effectively, but he just followed him around. The number of times he had Wilder backed to the ropes and just let him slip to the side without even attempting to cut him off was frustrating to watch. He simply didn't do enough even when he was in range he spent too much time waiting for the opportunity to counter, meaning he was always reacting to what Wilder was doing and not being proactive and so allowed Wilder to control the pace of the fight. He neglected the body. He started throwing to the body in the final 2 rounds and had success. But by then he was too tired and beat up to turn things around.
I think Stiverne's game plan was a gamble on every perceived weakness of Wilder ... only it turned out that he was better in every area than expected: 1) Not take any chances and just survive Wilder's early power -- hence the hands much higher than usual for Bermane, not jabbing because he didn't want to leave an opening for the right 2) Survive the early rounds and he thought Wilder would fade. Also thought his power wouldn't be there after the first few rounds Only he didn't count on Wilder being able to control the distance with his jab, he didn't count on Wilder still being able to hurt him after four or five rounds, he didn't count on Wilder's stamina being better than his own. Stiverne has never been a guy with a high punch output. He has always been a guy who looked for one or two big counters. He is exactly who he has always been. But Wilder was better than before, or better than he was thought to have been ... he rose to the occasion.
Wilder was just the better boxer. Not Wilder's fault Stiverne didn't know how to cut off the ring work behind the jab or put on an effective body attack
You make it sound like all that sh!t is easy to do. Despite what the commentators say, it's not that simple. I'm sure Stiverne would like to have been able to cut off the ring, but it was difficult when you are being kept at the end of rangier fighters jab, especially when rangier fighter is having moments of brilliance with the jab that is reminiscent of Holmes. He didn't use his jab because he felt Wilder's power early and chose to keep his hands at home. Using his jab would have invited a clean right hand over the top by Wilder. He couldn't go to the body because he was being kept at the end of Wilder's jab, as previously mentioned. He chose to come forward in an effort to keep Wilder on the backfoot and negate some of his power. It's easy to critique in hindsight on what a fighter should have done, but the fact is.....Stiverne was simply outclassed in every way.