O¿Is Deontay Wilder the least skilled heavyweight in history?

Whatever his lack of skill might be, because of his height, reach, explosiveness and most of all, punching power, he would be a top contender in any era. Especially eras where the average heavyweight was 6'0 and 185-195 pounds on fight night.

He would look absolutely devastating against the 185 pound fringe contenders and journeymen. He may have some trouble with the top contenders that size that have good movement like say, Eddie Machen or Tommy Farr. Although he puts their lights out if he can catch them.

 

Valuev and it's not even a question.

Primo Carnera if you believe that the mob rigged most of his wins.

 

You don't become champion if you have no skill.

 

Definitely the least skilled champion. That includes Willard and Carnera. He is THAT bad.

 

Valuev showed some weirdly good countering ability in some of his bouts, like against Liakhovich. His fundamentals were much better than Wilders.

 

It doesn't matter your fundamentals if you're moving like the recently unfrozen abominable snowman. Athleticism is a very notable skill.

 

If you can’t teach it, it’s not a skill. Wilder is a better fighter doe.

 

Up there with Valuev, Sam Peter...maybe a couple of others I am forgetting.

 

All athleticism is genetic in one way or another. Every boxer takes an innate skill of theirs and builds upon it. Having KO power isn't all genetic, it’s also clearly a skill. There have been tons of supposed genetic freaks who could barely punch through a paper bag despite the obvious physical advantages they had.

 

Punchers are born then they’re made… athleticism is something you’re born with, it isn’t a skill, you can’t teach it, you build on it by teaching guys to fight, you teach them “skills”

 

Which would be a valid point if he were a valid "champion." But this is an era of multiple "champions," meaning it isn't at all difficult to manufacture one by having his "championship" reign against guys like Molina and Szpilka.

 

He was, by no means, the least skilled heavyweight of all time, probably not even the least skilled heavyweight champion of all time. But the people around him didn't do right by him. I'm not talking about financially because they got him to a position where he made a lot of money. But, in terms of his boxing game, they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
Wilder had a very serious right hand and, against the people that he fought, he got pretty good and finding ways to land it and, in the end, that cost him overall. He got to thinking that all he needed to do was land that punch and I suspect that his trainers encouraged that. My guess is that the bulk of their training time focused on his right hand because everybody in the gym thought that was all he needed. I think that was the same thinking that went on around Max Baer and the results were strikingly similar.
That isn't how you approach training a fighter. Take the example of Arguello; dynamite right hand but he was really good at every punch that can be thrown. If I had wilder, we would have spent weeks between fights where he never put a glove on his right hand because his right hand was natural and it would always be there. But he needed a serious jab and he needed a left hook. When he put a glove on his right hand he would have been learning an inside uppercut.
If you read what Futch and Bill Slayton said about working with Norton, they said that he didn't like working on things that he wasn't good at. Maybe that was the case with Wilder. But you still have an obligation to the fighter and to your profession to teach things that will make the fighter better, even if he is resistant to learning them. You can't just throw right hands all day and neglect the rest of the game. So you teach the jab in such a way that it shows him how a good jab leads to a better right hand. You talk about how a hook to the body opens up the right hand. If you are teaching it from the floor up, everything feeds into everything else and there are a lot of ways to explain to a fighter how things that he doesn't think he needs flow into him getting better at his best weapon.
If that makes sense.

 

I agree with the notion that skills are taught. Things like power and athleticism are not skills. They’re innate and they’re gifts. A skill is something you develop through training and practice.

 

In the 70's he's not even Shavers or Lyle, both those men had solid fundamentals, just not great , but had above average power, with Shavers being considered the hardest punching heavy in history.
No , Wilder would be Jeff Simms , just taller.
The only reason a man as poorly skilled as Wilder could even be in a top ten , and much less actually a championship level fighter in this era is because almost all of his competition is even worse than he is, skill wise, and he did hit hard.
Much harder than most if not all of his opponents.
And when most of those opponents, can't even spell "parry" or " slip" or "ride" or " counter" or hands usually completely out of proper defensive positioning.
Well of course he's going to have a bunch of spectacular looking knock-outs.....
But you know what?
So did Butterbean....