Who Hit Harder Deontay Wilder, Earnie Shavers or Wladimir Klitschko?

Wilder managed to down Fury plenty, whereas Wlad could barely lay a glove on him.

While an argument could be made that Fury wasn't in tip top shape, that isn't Wilders fault. Fury was still very elusive in his first fight making him a really hard target, and they went to war on the third with Wilder having notably more success landing powerful shots compared to their second bout.

Don't get me wrong, Wilder is far from the most skilled fighter out there, but he was clearly capable of landing on skilled fighters. Unfortunately for fans it came a bit late in his career.

 

I rarely hear a double standard in favour of wilder

he’s generally very disliked/hated, i still can’t see a genuine reason why, as most reasons given can be applied to a fighter who is favoured

 

Was it, though?

Ali could knock out a guy in the 15th round who was never stopped before that or after - Bonavena.

Wlad and Ali both had better knockouts than most of the guys who were considered the great punchers of their eras ...

But you don't see Ali showing up on a lot of the greatest punchers ever lists, like you do Wlad.

And Ali stopped better people, and more names than anyone in the 60s and 70s. (FOREMAN, Frazier, Liston twice, Lyle, Quarry twice, Ellis, Patterson twice, Bonavena, Williams, Folley, Mathis, Moore ...)

I respect them both for their power. But Wlad definitely is viewed as more of a puncher than Ali, even though Ali's list of KO victims are the some of the greatest heavyweights of all time, and Wlad's are not.

But neither (Wlad and Ali) attacked people or relied on their power to win, like Wilder and Shavers did.

The two best heavyweights Wlad fought beat him. The biggest punchers Wlad fought beat him. Hell, come to think of it, four of the five best heavyweights Wlad fought beat him. (Joshua, Fury, Brewster, Sanders.)

If Wlad was a banger, than Ali was, too. They both kind of approached a fight the same way. I'm fine with it either way. I do think of both of them as punchers. I do think they both would've had even more KOs if they tried. (Ali certainly carried more than a few guys in his career.) But neither approached matches that way.

 

Holyfield and Briggs also knocked him down. Briggs stopped him.

 

Brewster and Sanders are not among the best guys Wlad fought though.

Fury and Joshua being ahead of Povetkin is questionable too

 

I see plenty...

For example, comparing him with other fighters opponents "but they were old" (or declined, or similar) where the same poster making that point will rarely point out Ortiz age, heart meds, etc.
Another is pointing to Stiverne as a ranked fighter (because he had a belt), where other fighters up against similarly weak champions often get pooh-poohed as not meaningful fights.

That's not to say it doesn't happen the other way (it does), but if anything I see at least as many in Wilder's favour.

Hmm, I can see multiple reasons he'd be disliked... Equally, I can see why some posters really enjoyed him despite the limitations...

On the plus side - most people like to watch knockouts, and fighters who promise aggression and knockouts can be entertaining regardless of who they're fighting.

On the downside... He was undeniably protected, his resume is poor for a former champion who could've made whatever fights he wanted. These can be forgiven up to a point, but then getting the ego on and claiming to be the best, whilst either ducking or being protected from guys who are practically begging for a fight and would easily top your resume - it's jarring, isn't it?
The "wanting a body" stuff is rather distasteful, too.


I think it's generally assumed I can't stand him because I'll point out some of the flaws and rate him less than many do - I'm more disappointed than anything... That faded a bit when Fury turned out not to be as shot as expected, and then he took tough fights on Parker and Zhang - I just wish he'd been taking those sorts of fights sooner and left much less doubt about where his level really was (and, as always, I don't tend to rate people on assumptions of what they might've done - if they had the opportunity and didn't prove it, I don't rate them as if they had).

 

I disagree. I thought Lamon had a far better reign than his cousin Chris Byrd did and better than David Haye's reign.

Byrd lost his title twice to Wlad. Haye and his broken toe lost badly to another "super cautious" Wlad.

While Brewster knocked out Wlad to win the title.

Byrd drew with Golota in a title fight. (I thought Golota outboxed Byrd).

Lamon knocked out Golota in one in a title fight.

Brewster won a classic with Krasniqi in Germany on Schmeling's 100th birthday. Brewster floored Liakhovich and engaged in an all-time heavyweight classic with him. Byrd seemed to need a gift decision to win every title defense he made (against Golota, McCline, Oquendo, and a snoozer with Williamson).

Brewster peaked as champion. He nearly lost his eye in the Liakhovich fight.

Only after that did Wlad rematch him and win.

Anway, I'd rate Brewster higher. Same with Sanders. Wlad had no answer for Sanders.

Byrd and Pulev were easy pickings for Wlad. They had nothing to bother him. They had straight-up amateur boxing styles that never worried him.

 

Mmm... Context is everything though.

By his own admission Fury had to be perfect for Wlad, and by his standards was.
There has always been some question mark over Wlads mental state in that fight - a rematch could've put it to bed but...


And yes, it's not Wilder's fault Fury only turned up in top condition once - but that's still context.

Until he gassed...

But again, as with Wlad, I have to pay attention to context and asterisk it up as mentally not being all there (consistency, eh?)... And I don't think Fury was as fit as he could/should have been either.

You say they went to war, I'd say more that Fury wasn't at his best, had lost some respect and was sloppy - again, it's still the case that it's not really knocking him down at his best... It's not nothing, but it's not worth anywhere near as much as hurting him at his best would be.

I couldn't possibly disagree that it's a shame he wasn't stepping up to better fights years before he did.

It's also true that even skilled fighters make mistakes, tire and gas, or just get caught careless at times...
It's a shame we didn't see Wilder fight more of the top level guys and sooner - we'd have had a better idea as to whether he really would've been able to land regularly at that level, and was just declined too much by Parker/Zhang (as his fans tend to claim) or whether he'd have struggled just as much if the Pov fight had happened, or if he hadn't ducked Whyte and Joshua... Then again, we might never have seen him fight Fury at all, or Parker or Zhang if he'd lost a couple of times already (which is certainly possible)... What-ifs can be interesting, but at the end of the day he fought who he fought and proved what he did - hindsight is cute, but it's all hypothetical, back in reality we have limited evidence that he could truly perform at that level.

 

Chris Byrd has a much deeper resume with wins over Vitali, Tua, Holyfield, McCline etc. His losses are also less embarrassing (Clifford Etienne and Liakhovich are bad losses). Byrd was past it for his title reign so why would anyone rate him by it?

Sanders didn't do anything of note outside beating Wlad and wasn't ranked for the vast majority of his career. I don't see how one big win can catapult him that high when he did nothing else of note.

Without the Wlad win I wouldn't rate Sanders in the top 300 that's how poor the rest of his resume is.

 

Again, not Wilders fault and both "poor" versions of Fury that turned up would still have beat most of the division imo.

As for their first fight, if Fury had truly gassed he wouldn't have gotten back up after that knockdown.

Their third fight was absolutely a war. Fury tried a repeat of the second fight but Wilder shot back and made a solid account of himself against the best heavyweight in the world at the time. That's no small feat, and I believe he deserves more credit for it.

 

He wouldn’t have got up if he wasn’t in shape either.

it seems the only time fury has been in shape in recent years is wilder 2.
Or maybe it’s just an excuse given to fury because he is a liked person.
Interestingly nobody mentions how wilder didn’t look too great himself in that same fight that fury was in shape for aka the only time fury has had ko power.

actually talking of power punchers, does fury fit the bill because in wilder 2 that looked like furocity (excuse the pun )

 

All are still better than anyone Wilder beat. If he beat Chagaev, vor example, that would easily be Wilder's best win. Primer Peter...same. Etc.

 

No. It is apples to oranges. Wilder's competition is pathetic.

 

I recall Holyfield made him take a knee. I recall it just being a conscious decision by Mercer to get out of a 9 million hit combo Holyfield was in the middle of landing on him.

 

I disagree and think this narrative is false exaggerated.

If you want to even pretend to have a fair balanced view, and pretend you don’t have double standards then name others as having pathetic resumes too.

Wilder is the only one out of the main 4 hw’s recently who hasn’t fought a complete boxing novice, that’s pathetic.

Don’t want to digress. But why does any thread mentioning wilder, turn into a wilder bash? this is why there is a double standard.
Put your pitchfork down.