After beating Gassiev, he was highly ranked—in the top 8, as I recall—but that was followed by a crushing defeat against Joshua and, shortly thereafter, a loss to Chisora in which he didn't win a single round; against Sirenko, he won two rounds at most. Wallin is a fighter with below-average power who has nothing to rely on other than winning on points, yet even that isn't working out for him.
Yeah, he's done. At his best he was a fringe contender, now he's got his one way ticket to Palookaville.
His footwork used to be decent, but he was slow-footed last night. He appeared to be in poorer shape and softer than in the past. He's clearly declined from his former fringe contender level. I thought Sirenko won every round, although the insufferable Max Kellerman kept saying it was a close fight.
The consensus was that Wallin beat Gassiev pretty clearly. Wallin did not do much but in most rounds Gassiev did nothing.
Would've been interesting to see how his trajectory might have been different if that Fury fight had gone his way, which it very nearly did.
At best, Wallin was a fringe top 15 HW. Fury thought Wallin was another Tom Schwarz, Wallin scored a fluke cut in round 3 and overperformed, but still lost a wide decision to a practically one-eyed Fury. Final fight 2 years inactive Breazeale and 29 year old Gassiev were decent wins, but no more than that. Wallin was not an unknown quantity vs AJ 4+ years later: AJ had got the better of Wallin in sparring years prior, and had two amateur wins over him. Wallin went in with little confidence in what was his cash out fight. Wallin admitted to considering retirement in the aftermath. Wallin has declined further since then, getting dominated by a 41 year old Chisora in a fight where Wallin looked terrified. So it's no surprise that Wallin, now almost 7 years removed from his breakout performance vs Fury and 35 years old, was destroyed by a guy he was a slight favourite to beat.
Honestly Wallin was never particularly good in the first place - a gatekeeper at best, I wouldn't even call him a fringe contender. Its why its such a joke that Gassiev is a beltholder! With Wallin his style was effective if he had a good night against someone with little work rate or ability. But when AJ, or even Chisora turned up - we know what happened there.
Gassiev has weighed between 230 (or 1/4 of a pound under that for his last fight so literally a flea poop less) and 238 for all 8 of his other fights at HW all of which he won via KO or stoppage but for some strange reason he came in at 216lbs for Wallin, over 20lbs less than what Wallin weighed. I recall there being numerous instances in that fight where Gassiev seemed to rock Wallin a little when he caught him where you could see Wallin definitely felt the power and I think if Gassiev came in at least a stone heavier ie. at least as much as what he's weighed in all is other fights at HW he would've knocked him out
If Gassiev wasn't a "titlist", and perhaps was still, say, interim... I would say Sirenko should now fight him. Although that's probably not a good idea, due to the Russia-Ukraine thing. Stupid war has robbed us of some potentially interesting fights (not my main concern obviously).
Yeah, I think Sirenko may well receive a top 15 ranking from at least one of the sanctioning orgs off the back of that win as Wallin was ranked 15 by the WBC and there are numerous HWs ranked in the top 15s of the sanctioning orgs who are less deserving of a ranking than Sirenko even with his surprising upset loss to Dacres. His resume isn't good but it's better than the resumes of those ranked HWs and he's better than Kidiru who stepped in at late notice to fight Gassiev last time out Indeed
Wallin simply doesn't have an ounce of power; he learned that in his fights against Chisora and Sirenko. Sirenko is probably only at the European level, but he has enough power to pose a threat, and Wallin found that out firsthand.
I was happy to see Sirenko get the KO against Wallin, but a part of me wanted Wallin to win just so he could rematch Gassiev, and for Gassiev to knock him out and erase that blotch on his record. I would be very confident that Murat would KO the Wallin who fought Sirenko.