Fury is a great athlete, but hes like a polar bear, polar bears are naturally athletic but carry excess fat.
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He's absolutely athletic. Athletic refers to a persons ability to perform well at a chosen sport, but does not possess the skill set that's goes with that particular sport. If that doesn't describe Wilder I don't know what does, the guy has achieved the highest level in his sport basically being a one trick pony, doesn't get more athletic than that!
These posts get ridiculous. Let me start by saying that I thought Fury won every second of that fight. Wilder is by far the superior athlete, being an exceptional athlete is what makes him what he is. It’s not boxing skill, so if it wasn’t his extreme athleticism he would have nothing. He is quick and extremely explosive, he is an athletic guy who is in the sport of boxing. People don’t seem to understand what makes someone a good athlete.
No one to my knowledge considered him otherworldly fast. Myself, I consider him one of the faster HWs in the division right now, but he puts so much into individual punches that he can't really string decent combos together since everything is swinging for the fences. Just in isolation I'd say he was easily as fast as Tyson himself, but Tyson's got a ton of other things working for him that can trump Wilder's raw speed such as timing, better sense of distance, ability to hide shots, and tighter technique. Only Parker I'd say is noticeably faster than him.
I think what you gotta remember is Fury has been doing this most his life, where as Deontay (and AJ) took up boxing a lot later. So Fury appears to be the more natural boxer, moves better etc because it is so entrenched into his muscle memory from a young age. Bit like tennis, almost all the top players these days have been playing since they were two years old, so smashing balls with rackets is the most natural thing in the world for them. It would be almost impossible to compete with these guys if you even started as late as 8 years old, because you are never gonna have the same muscle memory as the guys who started when they were 2. Same with Tiger Woods, there's videos of him playing golf at 2 years old. You can't underestimate what an advantage that is.
I certainly don't understand what people mean by the term, and I've never read a convincing argument yet. If it just means quick and explosive then it seems to be a fairly narrow definition, and I'd argue an overly simplistic one. My own leanings towards defining the term accurately focus less on raw attributes and more on ability to learn and integrate new motor patterns, in which case Wilder is quite poor. But that's not what it seems many people mean by the term. Wilder is quick and explosive, and can probably jump quite high and run quite fast. But he's also got terrible balance, poor spatial awareness, and a general lack of first-rate coordination skills. He's been this way since the start and hasn't noticeably improved. I can't call that great athleticism without muddying the word to incomprehensibility.
Athleticism is synonymous with physical ability. Somebody with anomalous physical attributes is an exceptional athlete. Coordination and spatial awareness is a matter of learning, not athleticism. Natural athletic ability, somebody with a high proportion of fast twitch fibres is a great athlete. You judge that quality by how explosive and powerful someone is. What makes Roy Jones and Gamboa great athletes while they are less than exceptional technicians? What physical attributes compensate for a lack of sporting expertise? Wilder obviously lacks sporting expertise, and yet he’s a 212lb heavyweight who can flatten a 260lb 6’9 man. He is an exceptional athlete. I hope that helps you understand.
Imagine a basketball player, and the only thing he can do well is dunk. He sucks at shooting, passing, dribbling etc.. But his dunks are like Blake Griffin or something. That's kinda the way I see Wilder, he's not a good all around athlete but if you look at pure, explosive power. He excels in that regard.
Not really! Coordination, spatial awareness and motor skills are as much to do with athleticism as any attribute Wilder possesses. Since they are also 'physical' attributes. Having good balance and agility requires natural traits too, just like fast twitch muscle fibers. Any attribute that can be applied UNIVERSALLY to ANY ATHLETIC sport, is an 'athletic' attribute. Thus, hand eye coordination, full body coordination, dexterity, agility, spatial awareness, speed, power and etc. are all athletic traits. Since they can be applied to any sport. Technical attributes are attributes that can only be applied to a specific sport. So for example, in boxing, technical attributes involve things like having correct defensive responsibility, ensuring the guard is up at the right time, ensuring correct body mechanics when throwing specific punches and so forth so on. They can't be applied to other sports as they are attributes related to specific individual sports. Technical attributes can be improved relatively evenly for any boxer. Whilst athletic attributes can be improved only so much, until it becomes a matter of genetics. Just like how people are genetically born with specific amount of fast twitch muscle fibers that enable them to perform fast movement, people are also genetically born with natural balance, agility and body coordination that can also be taught to a limited extent.
He's a good athlete. People underestimate how difficult it is to fight a much heavier man. That's why the staminas went in the last two fights. Ortiz and fury both had 30 or 40 lbs on him. It does tyre you quicker and you don't need to be wrestling the whole time for that to happen. The extra weight of the punches. Plus there's a physiological aspect to it. That does drain you more add to that fury and Ortiz make you tenser than the rest of the guys you,ve been fighting. That can deplete stamina....not being as relaxed as he has been against lower level guys. That's why usyk won't clean up at heavyweight. He,ll be competitive cause he's a very good fighter. That extra thirty or forty pounds makes a difference tho.
