Deontay Leshun Wilder vs. Derek Chisora & Viddal Ethan Danso Riley vs. Mateusz Masternak RBR.

I had a bad feeling as soon as I saw his weight but it was even worse than I feared. He looked like Dan Rafael trying to ascend Everest

 

I know this is too long but just gotta rant lol.



- Im not sure these two will receive the proper credit for this fight. Chisora is flat out shot. He moved like a 55 year old in there, and I think there were moments in the Jake Paul fight where Mike Tyson actually looked sharper (hyperbole). And Wilder isnt quite shot yet, but if you want to know how far past it Wilder is, he had -that- in front of him all night and instead of bodybagging him in 6, it was a grueling, back and forth dog fight. Wilder isnt shot shot, but he is done.

My point is, this fight could have easily been two past it guys staring, fienting and posing at eachother, seeing the targets but not having the guts to pull the trigger knowing the target dissapears before they can reach it these days. They could have turned in a bland sparring performance and just grabbed the bag. But they dogged it out and layed it on the line in a relatively fun fight. Salute to these two warriors.

- Im so sick of using the same empty expletives to describe these scumbag rat refs. Kinda pathetic on my part but a blatantly corrupt ref like that really still manages to make my blood boil lol. There needs to be more repercussions for these rats. But of course, nothing will change, this guy will be rewarded for his disgrace, while the boxing world angrily type empty words into social media for a couple days.

- Chisora is completely done. He should obviously retire but if he decides to stick around it should only be against fellow past it warhorses, similar to Wilder.

- Wilder probably still has enough left to possibly make a promoter wonder if he can sell Wilder again against another big name.

- Boxing isnt just a game of inches when it comes to landing or dodging the fight ending punches. Its also a game of inches in terms of, sometimes it can be mere 'inches' between someone being a stand out fighter due to the special traits they have being so good it turns an ordinary fighter into a standout fighter, but because their base is built on being special in only a minute area of the game, they are 'inches' away from being ordinary again when that specialness erodes away.

People think what made Wilder a standout fighter was his pure power. But for the most part, his power was generally an emergent product of his gauging ability and his explosiveness, which allowed him to execute on the openings he had once he gauged his opponents properly, and allowed to have the velocity on the punch to make it a fight changing weapon when it did land.

Now people are wondering what happened to his power... his explosiveness is all but gone, and without it, he cant execute on the openings enough to catch opponents with the type of shots that change fights, and when he does land, it doesnt have the velocity that made it dangerous in the first place.
And so without it, he loses what it is that made him genuinely dangerous to anybody.

I do think he showed flashes of some decent explosion in there but they were very few and brief.

- Can you imagine if Wilder had ever bothered to actually hone his jab? His jab isnt the worst jab ever and he uses it decently, but it had so much potential had he the boxing IQ to really dedicate to it and make it a part of his arsenal.

- Will be interesting to see who they try to feed Wilder to next. Its almost weird how much of a mismatch him against AJ seems right now. But considering what AJ has been through recently, its impossible to know what he has in the tank, what damage was done to his abilities, and how he will perform under the lights when the time comes. I think it would actually be a good comeback fight for AJ right now.... on paper it should be a mismatch, but theres enough slack there that if AJ isnt the same its still winnable, and all of that in a fight most people would still be tuning in for if for no other reason than for the ghost of the matchup that should have happened in their primes. If Im Hearn Im 100% trying to make that fight.