Was Wilder naturally gifted and just never provided the right training?

He needed a strict coach and management to hold him accountable. Too many yes men who fed his ego and only told him what he wanted to hear.

Someone like Freddie Roach would have been good for him.

 

I'm not sure you can teach some of the boxing skills and attributes needed to be elite. Some of those are inate skills. Wilder just isn't very good I'm afraid.

 

Yes and No.

To get the proper training you need to start young. Wilder didn't. He started at age twenty.

It was a question of goals and money.

Wilder got into boxing to make some money because his daughter was going to be born with spina bifida. ALL he could think about was getting some money to help her and went into boxing to do that after dropping out of junior college. He didn't have time to train for years he had to start raw.

By the time she had five surgeries and was better Wilder was knocking out people and was too arrogant to change. He has taken his career farther than most thought he could and should rest now.

 

I won't say the wrong trainers, but more likely Wilder didn't want to learn and improve himself. He get sucked in, in his own hype and he become delusional. I also don't think he had the right mindset and work ethics.

 

Be able to pick things up and change is a talent, just like speed and power.

Wilder worked with people who knew boxing. For whatever reason, he never was able to really learn the art of boxing.

The best HWs can learn new things and adapt as their body or oposition changes.

Ali reinvented himself as his speed of hand and foot diminished.

Foreman reinvented himself as he got older and heavier.

I remember Holmes talking about a martial arts block he learned to take away Cooney's left hook.

The Fury who fought in Wilder 2 bore little resemblance to the defensive minded mover that fought Vlad.

The best guys learn skills and adapt. Somehow Wilder, despite his other gifts, didn't have that in him.

 

It's strange with him. Sometimes I feel that if you tried to make him ordered and measured, he would lose that scary X-factor, wouldn't be so unpredictable and surprising with those hellish shots. Like that name fit him well - he was WILDER, and that was his thing - exploding like a caveman with 0 strategy.

 

Hard to say how good Wilder could have become if he had proper training from a young age but he was fortunate to come along in this pathetic heavyweight era. Any other era he wouldn’t have got as far as he did.

 

Wilder has never been the same since the sacking of Mark Breland simple as that ! The Fury trilogy has obviously took its toll on him . How can Wilder even employ somebody to train him like Scott who he blasted out inside a round without even hitting him LOL. Wilder has been the architect of his own downfall,sad to see but true .

 

Wilder's footwork and his jab needed ground up rebuilding since forever.

If he honed them properly setting up and killing a man with his right hand would be easy

He actually boxed fairly well in that first Fury bout all things considered...but Fury moving around laterally and giving plenty of room is what Wilder likes. No threat to him.

 

Absolutely not - and its clown business to suggest otherwise. Mr I wanna take a body and Mr my costume weakened me and Mr ayahuasca weakened me and Mr my trainer poisoned my water or Mr he summoned ancient spirits to defeat me.

Wilder was untrainable. He was offered good advice and education from a renowned trainer in Breland, among others, but like when he "bet on himself" he just couldnt stay out of his own way. Wilder is an ego trip on steroids where, somehow, he thought he knew best. That is why he's punch drunk and a shadow of himself while Usyk, 1 year younger, just became the 3rd male boxer to be undisputed in two weight classes (4 belt era) and 1st undisputed hw champ in 25ish years. Age was not a factor...commitment and dedication were. Wilder had his heart beaten out of him and he was never committed nor dedicated

 

at the very core, his problems start with his balance, its not good. probably because he has such a high center of gravity. this limits how smoothly he can transition between movements. hes gangly. outside of that skip step straight right, which is a natural movement for who he is, he cant do anything else well.

 

He got rid of mark Breland for no reason at all, and employed a novice trainer in Malik Scott

 

Wilder got as far as he did because of breland and the training team. Smart enough to know wilders natural boxing ability wasnt good enough for the top level regardless of how much training they did with him on it.

So they simplified it. Wilder had a good jab once upon a time. His footwork was good in terms of the constraints they put on it. With his height/length they done a similar thing to what klitchko did....backed off when an opponent came forward and inched forward when they we,re sneaking into range to get the jab or the one/two off. They had him keeping distance pretty well with the right hand waiting for anyone coming in usually after they got frustrated trying to get to him.

His problem is he came up against someone that had the speed of foot and good movement in fury that broke his system. Tbf a freak of nature in terms of his speed to size in fury. Him and usyk would have beat wilder but wilder would have beat joshua with it for me. Joshuas foot speed backing up would have let him down.

Boxings a funny old game tho. The majority had wilder beating joshua once upon a time. Then joshua beat up some lower tier guys and improved while wilder got wrecked and now been changed to joshua would always have beat him.

i m not too sure about that tho. Wilder was a dangerous guy.