Who the hell were Wilders first 21 opponents?!!

on the

Yeah well, that kind of happens when you're a Gold Medalist at the 2012 LONDON Olympics, an undeserving one at that, you tend to get pushed as hard as humanly possible and most importantly fast tracked. Especially when it comes at a time where Boxing is on the upswing in the UK.

Whereas Wilder was a Bronze Medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, at a time when Americans probably didn't even realize boxing at the Olympics existed, that's just how out of touch we are here. No one cared then, and Wilder turning pro barely made a ripple, same goes for Spence Jr. or even Andre Ward who won gold. Boxing was dead in this country when he turned pro, and even now, its only marginally more popular than it was then, and that limited popularity only applies to a handful of fighters.

Its pretty easy to become a megastar when your promoter puts you on TV from your opening match, on PPV cards and huge TV broadcasts, however its hard to get top opponents when the majority of your early matches either aren't on TV, or in bingo halls and night clubs and usually on the untelevised portion of undercards. Every other HW in this country have followed a similar path, only they failed to distinguish themselves with sensational KO's, whereas Wilder has.

 

Wow, he fought fat bums in his first 20 fights! Really! No ****. That's what HW's do here.

IIRC his first televised match was against Manswell, and then he followed that up with two undefeated prospects McCreary and Price, and from that point he took on a series of guys that were around the level or AJ's first 12 opponents or better.

So Checkmate to you, in America you don't matter until you get on TV, so Wilder made his TV debut in 2012 around the same time as Joshua, so in reality, their rise to prominence has followed a similar pattern, only with Wilder get far less publicity.

Wilder's real pro career started in his 24th match. The rest was wasted time. He was never meant to be a star or had any fanfare, he made himself one though through sheer force of will.

 

Let's give this narrative a try shall we? Like BC and AD, there's BTV and ATV.

So let's apply the standard set for AJ, being a megastar in the media eye since turning pro and apply it to Wilder, only thing that matters are their televised matches.

Wilder's resume.
Luis Ortiz
Bermane Stiverne
Gerald Washington
Chris Arreola
Artur Szpilka
Johann Duhaupas
Éric Molina
Bermane Stiverne
Jason Gavern
Malik Scott
Nicolai Firtha
Siarhei Liakhovich
Audley Harrison
Matthew Greer
Kelvin Price
Damon McCreary

Joshua's resume
Joseph Parker
Carlos Takam
Wladimir Klitschko
Éric Molina
Dominic Breazeale
Charles Martin
Dillian Whyte
Gary Cornish
Kevin Johnson
Raphael Zumbano Love
Jason Gavern
Michael Sprott
Denis Bakhtov
Konstantin Airich
Matt Skelton
Matt Legg
Hector Avila
Dorian Darch
Hrvoje Kisicek
Paul Butlin
Emanuele Leo

Now clearly AJ has fought 2 opponents that are world class in Wlad and Parker, and two scratching world class with Takam and Whyte. But after that, there's Breazeale Martin and Molina who are decent, and the rest are absolute crap.

So that's
Two beastly wins.
Two solid wins.
Three decent wins.
Fourteen crap wins.

Whereas Wilder has one world class opponent in Ortiz, two opponents in Duhaupas and Stiverne (first time) scratching world class, and then you have Szpilka, Washington, Arreola, Molina, Scott and Liakhovich who are decent.

So that's
One beastly win.
Two solid wins.
Six decent wins.
Six crap wins.

So when it comes to measuring each man's resume based on their time spent in the spotlight, take out Wlad, and they're pretty ****ing close to even.

 

Nope, not in the least, that's why this whole narrative annoys the **** out of me, they're applying a ridiculous standard to Wilder that quite frankly didn't even exist when he turned pro, not to say some excellent fighters in the past haven't been fast tracked, but not quite at the rate they're going with many post 2012 Olympic medalists, like Loma, Usyk and of course AJ, in some cases its time's a wasting, and like with AJ, Hearn is just trying to get as much bang as humanly possible for his buck.

They're records are fairly similar if applied to the amount of time they've both spent being the "elite" in their division.

As far as Parker goes, I always saw it as 50/50, but I am a Parker fanboy, so...