How Long Does Wilder Last, As An 80 's Belt Holder?

But you’re making an assumption of how Wilder would have done, based upon him beating guys like Szpilka etc.

Why can’t you give us objective predictions based upon how they’d have matched up stylistically, instead of just claiming that Wilder would have beaten everyone because he had better stats that what they did?

 

Better stick to Fight Night on the PS4.

 

You have now argued for 15 pages, yet there’s still no breakdown on ANY fight.

None.

Wilder hasn’t done ANYTHING in his career for anyone to be supremely confident that he could have beaten ALL of those 80’s guys.

Fighting mostly C class fighters twice a year after beating Stiverne for a belt, ISN’T ENOUGH evidence.

How long have you been watching the sport?

It’s conceivable that Wilder could have beaten Holmes, but then come unstuck against a much lesser fighter.

That’s boxing.

Styles make fights.

Mike Tyson beat Holmes in 4 rounds.

He beat Spinks in just 1 round.

That means he beat 2 very good HW’s in a combined 5 rounds.

Yet Mitch Greene lasted the 10 round distance.

Greene wasn’t better than Spinks or Holmes.

Mike lost to Douglas, but beat guys who Douglas lost to.

You haven’t accounted for styles, schedules or anything.

Claiming that Wilder would DEFINITELY have beaten every 80’s HW is completely IGNORANT.

 

I find the argument a little bit racist to assume that Wilder would fall into the same traps. Drugs and alcoholism are currently rampant in Alabama for starters….

 

How about noting that Mike was just a great fighter back then.

We know that the guys who he beat weren’t relatively poor.

Holmes
Spinks
Bruno
Tucker

And if you think that they were poor, then what does that say about Wilder’s opponents?

 

Right. Which means that logically speaking, any of the 80’s HW’s on a given day, depending on styles, could also have beaten Wilder. And vice versa.

Which means that it’s ignorant to assume that Wilder would DEFINITELY have beaten ALL of the 80’s guys.

 

List all the stats for Wilder that you want.

It’s not evidence that he’d have beaten all of the 80’s HW’s mentioned.

Fights are won depending on how guys match up on the night.

Not by who has the best looking stats on Boxrec.

 

He could have fought Holmes instead too.

You probably have Wilder beating Holmes, on the grounds that he has tattoos and Holmes didn’t.

It wouldn’t surprise me.

You’ll go to any depths.

 

Are you joking?

Exhibit A for 80s drug problems sinking a career is Gerry Cooney, who was white. And Wilder is black and doesn't have drug problems in 2021.

What exactly is the chain of reasoning that led you to a racial angle here?

 

Well, there you go. You just used a white guy to prove your point. Looks almost like, “If a white guy could be a drug addict in the 80s, so could Wilder.”

Wilder is a family man who has had every chance to a drug addict/partier but didn’t. I don’t think there’s an argument that the 80s would change that. It doesn’t feel right to me undermine his discipline.

If you’ve made similar arguments for the K-bros and Povetkin, I apologize. Not that I agree with the premise.

 

The only person here who's seeing a racial angle is you. My response to your basically calling me racist for saying the 80s had a drug problem (?!) was that drug problems were not just afflicting one race of people in the 80s.

What is it about drugs that immediately makes you associate them with black fighters? The whole racial tangent is frankly bizarre to me.

They weren't Americans. I don't know what the drug culture looked like in the 1980s Soviet Union. If they defected after winning Olympic medals, yes, they'd probably be at risk for drug use, because they'd run in the same circles that the other Lost Generation fighters ran in. (They'd likely also be early adopters of steroids at a professional level, which were still accessible in the West, and widely used in Eastern Bloc sports programs.)

Just like the majority of other 80s heavyweights. Even the people criticizing the 80s on Wilder's behalf are pointing out the issues that the Lost Generation had. Which, parenthetically, I doubt were solely drug related. There seemed to be something wrong with 80s heavyweights on a broader level than just the drugs, since we still have drugs today without it destroying the entire division.

 

So are we getting rid of Wilder’s disabled daughter? I think that’s an important difference between Wilder, a disciplined fighter outside the ring, and ****ing Tony Tubbs.

 

That's true. It's a huge difference. What was medical care like for someone with her disability in the 80s?

 

Treatment for neurological conditions is basically in the dark ages compared to other parts of medicine.

 

Today or then? Or both?

Your line of inquiry here is basically getting at the major problem with this kind of scenario. The more 2021 context you import into the 80s to make sure that Wilder is still the Wilder we know, the less Wilder is authentically competing in the 80s.

If Wilder is essentially vacationing in the 80s with a Tardis to transport in his family, coaches, and internet connection from 2021 whenever they're needed, he's not really abiding by the spirit of the thread. If he's born in the 1960s with no trace of his current backstory, he's no longer really Wilder anymore.