The closest he gets is Ortiz... Who was 38, less than a month from 39 (on paper, he may well have been older), was on heart meds and had an extremely thin resume - the highlight of which was gatekeeper Bryant Jennings (whose career highlight was losing a WIDE ud to Wlad - he looked competitive in patches but was totally outclassed). I've always been clear that I considered Ortiz to be massively overhyped - 36 yo Ortiz beating Jennings certainly didn't make him a legit contender 2.5 years later (at nearly 39) when he fought Wilder the first time, and that's if he ever was (which, IMHO, is a massive stretch). Nothing objective about it, btw - there's no "objective" criteria for what makes a legit contender.
It's objectively false. Jennings was ranked due to putting on a good performance against Wlad the top dog and he beat Perez. Ortiz was also ranked. You can call them overhyped, but he has a top 10 win and by eye test Oritz was a decent operator. Lower end top 10, definitely not top 5 I wouldn't argue if Ortiz didn't beat any contenders but he did.
41 year old Zhang has had no stamina in the back half of his more recent fights, and Wilder spent the entirety of his one and only fight of the past year backpedaling. I feel like whoever actually shows up will win this one. But there's a chance neither shows up and we get a boring sparring session that goes to the scorecards.
116-111 116-111 118-109 A decent performance in spots, but I used the word "outclassed" for a reason - totally different levels. Recent history shows you just how worthless rankings can be - not least in the case of a certain fighter who had only one fight (not even a title fight) and lost to a champion with less belts and less defences... Fighters get bumped up rankings way beyond where they belong, sometimes. Lower end top 10 is absolute best-case, but in a weak/thin era you don't even necessarily have 10 legit contenders... We arguably don't even have 5 at the moment, for example. I disagree - I don't think Jennings ever was a contender. His career best achievement was that wide loss to Wlad. His best wins? Liakhovic, Szpilka, Dimitrenko - hardly serious fighters to be basing a claim to be a contender on. And the reason this is even such a pivotal point in talking about Ortiz is how little else he actually accomplished - his best wins after Jennings? Scuba Scott? The 43 year old corpse of Tony the Tiger? Charles ****ing Martin? That's a resume built on quicksand if you ask me. Sorry, I think we're just not likely to see eye to eye on this. Ps. It's still not "objective" even if you'd like it to be - it's indisputably subjective.
I'm kinda predicting a repeat of the second Joyce fight. I think after the first round, Zhang will realize he can see Wilder's punches coming a mile away and that he's not very good at fighting on the backfoot, start landing hard shots on him in the second round while taking his telegraphed punches on the gloves, then prolly finish it at some point soon after. Wilder isn't quite as stationary as Joyce, but he isn't exactly hard to hit, so I doubt Zhang will have a hard time finding him with big shots, and while Zhang's not exactly a master in head movement either he's got a pretty good high guard at least. On the other hand, if Wilder survives long enough for Zhang's gas tank to run out, I could see him winning via stoppage. Surviving Zhang's dangerous period might be a pretty tall order, but who knows how long or short that'll actually end up being, since his tank is notoriously bad as is and he's dead set on coming in over 300 pounds for some reason, so I can't imagine that'll do it any favors. I'm sure he's relying on more than a few rounds not being a factor, but that's a plan that could easily bite him in the ass. All that being said, I'm backing Chinese Power over Alabama Power. Predicting a Zhang KO 3-5
Rooting for Zhang, and I think he may get the KO win. But his stamina has been poor in later rounds, so if Wilder survives until the halfway point, he may go on to win the fight. Hopefully Zhang has been working on his cardio and will come in better condition.
I could care less about the order, but the top 10/15 are the top 10/15. That's all whose around whether you rate them or not "Legit contenders" = I only rank who I want to rank. You can rank and rate whoever you like but by the organizations you're factually wrong, and this is the entire point. Wilder beat 2 officially ranked contenders. I can agree that Stiverne was crap, prime Ortiz was a solid fighter, I'd favor him over a few top 10 now. And yet an even older chinnier slower Ortiz arguably outboxed Ruiz the majority of the fight, getting dropped twice. Prime Ortiz would have beat Ruiz and im sure a poll would agree Perez was a decent win at the time, yet i remeber you rating Takam around Ortiz's level which makes no sense
That isn't how boxing works. Lol Foreman got knocked down by Ali but then years latter got hit by the much harder punching Tommy Morrison and didn't budge. Mike Tyson got stopped by Buster Douglas but then turned around and took everything the much harder punching Razor Ruddock could dish out. Ray Mercer got dropped by Lennox Lewis but took Tommy Morrison and Lennox Lewis punches and wasn't dropped. Also Zhang was dropped ealier in his career by some guy who finished his career with a 8-8 record. So based off your logic if this guy could knock Zhang down then the much harder punching Wilder will keep him down.
Why the hell does Zhang want to come in over 300lbs? What an idiot. Almost want the Bronze Dosser to chin him now. Almost.
