One thing that I have been clear in saying when critiquing the career of Deontay Wilder is that his team and management have done him a tremendous disservice. They've done him a disservice much like his good friend Malik Scott's team has done, by: Not putting him into a progressively more difficult fight schedule and letting him experience adversity, failure in his approach, and then learning from it and seeing the need to adapt and learn new techniques. Show me someone who has improved or come close to perfecting his craft, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. If you juxtapose the career resume of Deontay Wilder with someone like Anthony Joshua you will see exactly what I'm talking about. The reason that Anthony Joshua was able to bounce back from the defeat to Andy Ruiz is because underneath the aggressive attempt at the KO is actually boxing fundamentals. He went outside of himself to seek the KO in an attempt to impress the boxing public. He didn’t have to do it, unlike Wilder. Wilder either never learned, or never learned to continue to build upon and grow from the fundamentals.
Wilder is just a cash cow. He has Mark Breland in his corner 5x NY golden glove champ and he hasn’t improved at all. Doesn’t want to get better or doesn’t have the ability to get better.
I've been watching the American media and nobody ever brings up Wilders resume. You would think hes stopped Larry Holmes, Lennis Lewis and Vitali with all the talk about his stature and standing as a heavyweight.
Well said. He had some natural ability but the work was never put in. Sadly its probably too late now but maybe he can add in a few wrinkles to improve himself at least in a sense that just to help him set up the big right hand. Theres no point trying to reinvent the wheel.
His fundamentals are virtually non existent and he has no game plan other than to stay patient and hope at some point to land the bomb. Virtually no jab, despite having a huge reach, his balance especially when having an opponent in trouble is poor. You wonder what they’re doing with him in the gym.
When you look at all 3 of the top guys and their progression it's clear Wilder has not progressed to the same extent Joshua and Fury have. We saw Fury learn to sit down on his shots, counter more, press and generate more power vs Wilder in the rematch, becoming a more complete fighter. We've seen Joshua learn to be more cautious, box more, move more, improve his counter punching, learn to pace himself better, etc and become a more complete fighter. Wilder instead of improving his boxing skills, has simply learned to be more patient in waiting for a KO opportunity as so not to leave himself open and take too much damage while being out boxed.
I don't think that he would see a reason to focus on the fundamentals, until he actually has to do so. A few tough early fights would've done the trick I believe.
His fans aren't helping either. Even a mild critique of him ends up with his fans making ridiculous accusations and defensiveness.
He has a decent jab, but seems like he doesn't want to use it.... Stiverne 1 showed us that he has some boxing ability. His biggest issue is his ego. Its been said that he doesn't listen to trainers, even Deas, let alone a higher level one. Hopefully this loss is enough to make the changes in his game.
Few things I learned about Wilder. 1. His chin is as bad as I suspected it was - pillow fists dropped him multiple times, rocked him multiple more. 2. In addition to not being able to box well going forward he clearly can’t fight going backwards 3. He has heart. It was shown before in fights but it was on display again he doesn’t quit I’ll give him that.
Maybe not putting him in more difficult fights was the plan to earn million dollar fights with the #1 or #2. Once he loses to a bum or non-elite fighter, he can't sell anymore fights.
Another way of looking at it is their careful matchmaking made him a longterm belt holder and allowed him to cash in on his talents. I wouldn't say quite a maximum as the AJ fight would have been another level of wealth.
Wilder never learned to improve his boxing because he never saw the need to do so. He had power enough to knock everyone down he ever fought so in his mind there was no need for anything else. He's also dumb and lacks true athleticism, meaning he can't learn new motor patterns easily or integrate them into his overall style. It's a wonder he managed to develop as far as he did because he was a completely uncoordinated mess when he first turned pro. These past few years have actually seen some improvements in his game, but they weren't ever going to be enough to take on a beast like Fury.
