A point about Deontay Wilder and the ongoing nonsense regarding how many contenders he's faced

Contenders are "made" at the green WBC table. How on earth were shot, fat Arreola, Mexican truck driver Eric Molina or Polish bar bouncer Szpilka ever top 15 "contenders"? They should have never been in a title fight, not in a million years.

 

IMO that's because its very uneconomical to cherry pick 10 title defenses like Wilder is doing. Low risk opponents which can be easily defeated usually generate low income. Another lowly name to the resume does not increase name recognition or reach.

Historically, high-level fighters tended to pick riskier fights and big unification fights with one-time multi-million payoffs, hence rarely reaching dozens of consecutive defenses.

You make it sound like Wilder's string is an achievement that others in history strived for but failed to achieve. They never tried; they went for the big risk, big money fights. Wilder chose a different path for himself.

 

Been watching boxing about 25 years mate

You also skilfully avoided the question about how Wilder never tries to unify or fight contenders from other organisations

 

I think it is a bit of both. He failed to secure a top contender with Povetkin because of Povetkin. I agree with you in theory, but technically speaking HW champs have thrown away the belt. aka avoiding risk like Bowe who threw his belt in the can to not fight Lennox, correct?
Lennox who threw away a belt to not fight Byrd.
Spinks lost a title when he decided to rematch Ali who at the time was considered washed up for losing to an 8-0 supposed cherry pick.

I think it is difficult to say all 10 defenses were cherry picked. 3 of those were against undefeated opposition 18-0, 27-0 & 28-0. Only one had more than 3 losses (Arreola back in 2016) & 7 have 1 loss to their record since 2015.

And the HW's in the 1980s, couldn't say if titles often switched hands due to taking big risks or they just failed to maintain what they obtained, the championship. Weaver, Page, Thomas, Tubbs, Dokes, Berbick all had what WIlder got - belt, but they couldn't defend it more than 2 times, some had zero successful defenses. That tells me 10 for Wilder's career accounts for something other than just a 5 year cherry picking streak.

 

The funny thing is he would avoid three guys like the plague you mentioned , Hrgovic now , would only fight Joyce if he was forced and DDD in the future he would stay far away from as possible until the end.

I didn’t even bring up Usyk because according to Wilder he’s to small but once challenged Bellew instead of AJ .

 

Fury, Ortiz X2, Stiverne, Breazeale... that makes 5 fights against true top 10 contenders.

Liakhovich was a faded former titlist. For their rematch, Stiverne was also a faded former titlist.

Duhaupus and Molina actually notched their top win/form after Wilder beat them, so those wins became slightly better after but still not contenders even with retrospect.

 

Is the question not about who wilder has faced, but the people who has declined to face?

that's the big question, there are numerous decent challengers out there but every time he declines to fight any of them in favour of fighting old shop worn fighters with dodgy chins or complete puddings

 

I think the op has a different concept of contenders than all of us. I think by contender he actually means contenter - as in content to cherry pick.

 

i count that hes faced 3 real contenders

stiverne

fury

ortiz

 

Stiverne best win is against Areola shows his level. Prime Stiverne or Arreola wouldnt make the current top 20.

Ortiz - Only notable win was over 5 years against Jennings. Questionable real age, has looked poor in showings against Kauffman and Hammer.

Fury - Retired mutiple times after being proven to have failed tests for PEDs and coke. Went on an eating binge and was inactive for lenghty period. Came back looking very out shape and peforming poorly against two very poor level tune up fights and looking no where near the fighter he was pre retirement. Has gone life and death with fighte ranked outside the top 40 since.

 

still top contenders in my opinion at the time he faced them and the competition they put against him as well

 

they were contenders i agree with you

but like actual competition wise i rate stiverne ortiz and fury