Andrzej Wawrzyk was scheduled to fight Deontay Wilder in February 2017. He failed a drug test and pulled out of the fight. HOWEVER - There's more than meets the eye. Since his failed title challenge (as he failed a drug test) he's never fought since. He was an unusual pick to begin with. Fighting mostly journeymen or older fighters like Botha or Danny Williams. In his most notable fight he was knocked out in 3 rounds by Povetkin. Why was he picked? And why hasn't he fought since, considering he was scheduled for a title challenge? Wouldn't he be able to re-build? Very strange.
Good chance they have given him a long ban and he called it quits. When you're a noname Eastern European fighter caught on peds, they tend to throw the book at you.
No book throwing involved. Wawrzyk was plagued by injuries and quietly retired. He was picked as Wilder's opponent because of his good-looking record and the fact that he posed no threat whatsoever, in order to be violently KO'd in 1, Brazil style.
Dude Wawrzyk simply wasn't top level material. Povetkin violently mugged his ass and introduced him to the higher echelons. I'm sure Wilder would have liked to fight him because he had a nice-looking record and was an easy touch at the same time. All he had was a jab and Povetkin timed that and crashed him with the overhand right. Big guy but no power.
Prime Povetkin did mug him but he came back quite well from it. I assume fuelled by peds. Might well return at some point.
I mean, it literally was the case. PBC signed him, got him a fight on US soil and then the next step was to put him in with Wilder. From 2015 to 18, Wilder ducked everyone in the division. There were no attempts to make any meaningful fights. They offered Joshua some BS deal for 50mil and told them: "It´s fine, just sign the deal. Don´t worry about the details." They somehow convinced a lot of people that Joshua was ducking him. I guess it´s not hard to do since many seriously dislike Joshua.
You know what's sad, he probably would have been a tougher fight than people think he should have been
I'm trying to stay above arguing with dummies, but when people like you just lie, and everyone ignores it, that's not great for the board. One click at his record will show in 2015 Deontay Wilder fought the WBC Heavyweight Champion and won the belt. And in 2018, Wilder successfully defended his title twice, first against Luis Ortiz and then against Tyson Fury, and he scored five knockdowns in those two defenses. Fighting for and winning the WBC heavyweight title, and successfully defending against Ortiz and Fury, were meaningful fights. By any measure. Any measure. Which leaves 2016 and 2017. Those two years were a low point in Wilder's career ... because of the rampant cheating going on in the sport. As you may recall, 2016 was the year Fury stormed the ring after the Wilder-Szpilka fight and they went nose to nose, and then Fury said he was going to fight Wilder for all the belts ... only for us to watch Fury retire before the Klitschko rematch that year after he got caught cheating. Wilder fought four times in those two years ... and every opponent he faced in those two years was "sub" for a boxer who would fail a drug test. Spzilka was a late sub for Povetkin - who insisted he needed more time to train when in truth we learned Povetkin was just waiting until he thought the PEDs he was taking had flushed out of his system. The next opponent was Arreola, who was a late sub for Povetkin after Povetkin actually took his drug test and failed. Wilder suffered a torn bicep AND a broken hand against Arreola (but still managed to win by stoppage - which was an amazing feet itself) and was out for the rest of 2016 to recover from both surgeries. At the start of 2016, it looked like Wilder would be fighting Povetkin and possibly Fury, and it ended with him having fought two subs (because both Povetkin and Fury were taking PEDs) and having to recover from two surgeries. It was very disappointing. When Wilder returned in early 2017, he was supposed to fight against Wawrzyk, but Wawrzyk failed a drug test, too. So late sub Gerald Washington was brought in. Then Wilder signed to fight Luis Ortiz in 2017, Ortiz failed a drug test, TOO. So Wilder fought Stiverne, who the WBC said he had to fight (after Sitverne's fight with Povetkin was called off for Povetkin failing his drug test again). When Ortiz was cleared from his failed test, the Wilder-Ortiz fight was rescheduled for 2018. Frankly, blaming Wilder for all those freaking guys failing their drug tests in 2016 and 2017 is nonsensical. That's like blaming Fury for David Haye screwing him around for a year and then not fighting him or blaming Wlad for Fury failing his drug test and not going through with their rematch, leaving Wlad with no one to fight that year. Which nobody does. But, apparently people here start threads like this one so people can bash Wilder for opponents like Wawrzyk, who failed his drug test and who Wilder didn't even fight, so what's new? Everything I said in this post is true. So I won't be answering any replies to this post from those who disagree with the actual truth. I just wanted to type the actual truth in case someone who wasn't around then didn't know what actually happened. Too many people just repeat bad information over and over on this board. Have a nice Saturday.
