Chris Byrd v Wilder?

He was as good as he always was against Fury and Ortiz. Fury was just to good.

Only noticeable decline started with Parker tbh which Parker himself admitted to (Only Parker blamed Wilder's decline on rust).

 

If you're interpreting my point as Wilder being exactly the same in 2023 and 2024 as in late 2019, I have nothing left to say to you.

 

He failed to land more than five punches in a round in the Ortiz rematch except for the finish. He was actually a pretty active fighter in the first Stiverne fight.

 

I can't buy Wilder being past prime in those bouts considering he still put on an excellent performance against Fury in that third bout. Only after the Fury fight, is his decline obvious.

 

His gas tank and legs were nothing in the third fight compared to the first. He succeeded in landing some bombs which made it close.

This is like saying Ruddock was the same for Lewis as he was for Broad or Rahman was the same for the Toney rematch as he was for the first Tua fight.

 

Byrd wins rounds 1-7.

Then, in round 8, Byrd has a 10-8 round when he stops to drink a soda in the middle of the round and Wilder still can't catch him, impressing the judges.

Byrd wins rounds 9-12 in a more traditional manner.

Wilder claims that Byrd used voodoo, he has another dent in his head, and then he yells "Boooooooomb sqaud!"

 

Wilder.

In a wipeout.

People laughing at Wilder because he couldn't beat a nearly 300-pound Zhang.

Here's Byrd the same age as Wilder getting smoked by a light heavy.

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I mean it's clear as day Wilder's a shot fighter now. That being said, show me one post in this thread where anyone laughed at Wilder for losing to Zhang.... or even mentioned Zhang at all for that matter.

 

Eh you may have a point regarding his gas tank in that third fight. I always wondered why he seemed to gas so badly compared to their first fight, but I always put that down to him being 20 pounds or so higher off the top of my head.

 

I'm not. You said Wilder started to vanish 6 years ago and tried to blame it on inactivity, which was BS, as he was as active, as always in 2018 and 2019. He just stepped up the competition and the fights started to take more out of him. I doubt it was strictly coincidental that he started to fade at the same moment he came out of PBC's witness protection program.

 

Byrd.

 

I can agree with this but it was really the Fury fights that took it out of him. Two back to back brutal beatings and vicious KOs.

 

Sure, he was definitely no longer himself after these, got the fight beaten out of him. But it was NoNeck, who argued Wilder started to fade in 2018. So, Wilder fights his first Top 10 contender since Stiverne in 2015, fights the returning lineal champion and suddenly, just like that, he's not the same fighter he was a year before, in rematches with both? Something tells me it was because he stepped up the competition and took some punishment in both Ortiz and Fury fights in 2018.

 

I remember Byrd in a Youtube video saying that he wouldn't want to fight Wilder, not just because of the power but he's giving up way too much height and reach, therefore not being able to slip Wilder effectively.

 

7 times out of 10, Byrd wide UD.
3 times out of 10, Wilder KO while a mile behind on PTS.