If he was lighter and was able to stick that jab throughout fight, I think it might have been a different fight. His tank was spent when he dropped Fury. Fury was still hurt in rnd 5 and Wilder couldn’t do anything but slowly telegraph haymaker at him. How do you keep a fighter from clinching you, jab and keep the distance.
Wilder when he is 211-215 lbs can throw punches in bunches and in combinations. When he is 230-238 lbs, he can only throw one haymaker from a mile which is easy to see.
I am not sure if he abandoned it willingly. He was visibly tired after the first round and after he was punched solidly once, he looked much worse. I was genuinely surprised on the first round though. The guy cannot fight on the backfoot at all though, i am sure they worked out on that but he goes full ****** whenever he is on the back foot. He tries to step in with the jab and just goes windmilling. Spams it actually. But hats off to his heart.
Wilder fought Dhuapas at 229 lbs and he was throwing one punch at a time. Looking very sluggish in that fight. In his future fights he came in at 210-220 lbs and had much more speed, stamina and threw more combinations. If anything, he needs more professionalism in his corner rather than Yes Men
I'm pretty sure WIlders game plan was to put on extra weight to make it harder for Fury to back him up. Malik repeated a million times in the corner to Wilder to not back up but 7 more pounds of muscle isn't going to magically make you stronger than a 6'9" 277 lb guy who has better stamina and footwork. If Malik wanted Wilder off the ropes he should have drilled Wilders lateral footwork.
He certainly tired very fast. I think there are a few reasons for that. But, having said that, Wilder was still throwing punches, he just wasn’t targeting the same area. Can we blame Malik for him abandoning that plan (If it was the plan at all)?
This the gameplan was fine, targetting Fury's body and usind a body jab was the right idea. Bulking up was stupid, Wilder has a history of being more sloppy when he's heavier and sharper when leaner, so bulking up to almost 240 pounds was stupid as hell, his gas tank was getting empty after 2 rounds. In the end the main problem is Wilder, I doubt that you can teach him a lot at this stage.
Yeah, but putting on weight is not a plan. It’s certainly a process to help you execute a plan. Or stop your opposition from executing theirs. I’m simply pointing out that Wilder seemed to have very clear instructions to target Fury’s body. Outside the flash knockdown, that 1st round was the way to go. Is it Malik’s fault that Wilder abandoned that so soon? Or, did he tell him to stop doing it? I don’t know.
Yes! Wilder chose to abandon his original plan around the fourth round. He went back to being an undisciplined windmill puncher. That’s on Wilder. His boxing in the first couple rounds was surprisingly good. You can only lead a horse to water.
Wilder started the fight jabbing to the body. That was Malik's strategy and it kinda worked for a little while. Fury adjusted a bit, but Wilder completely abandoned it after 1 round. After the Fury knocked Wilder down in the 3rd round, everything went out the window and Wilder reverted back to old Wilder. You can't change an old fighter. They always revert back and go back to their comfort zone.
I honestly have no opinion on Malik because I am not knowledgeable on him but Wilder had a good trainer with Breland. I think it's more about Wilder that he doesn't listens to his trainers and doesn't try to learn something new. After last night i checked his Olympics performance and even a simple clip from Olympics shows me a much better boxer. He seems to lost much of his boxing ability because he relied on his right hand. This content is protected
I don’t like to see fighters bulk up like that. It never seems to end well, and as you’ve said, it depletes their gas tank. I also think Wilder, very much like Joshua, burns extreme amounts of nervous energy in the ring. On top of that he’s yet to learn the art of arm punching, which is way more economical on your gas tank, and improves your boxing tenfold.
I'm not too hard on Wilder for that. Opening up with jabs to the body is a very common gameplan we see all the time and it's almost always abandoned after 3-4 rounds for whatever reason.
