Donovan Ruddock Vs Deontay Wilder

Ruddock...Wilder had good power but that's it. His skills and boxing IQ are awful IMO

 

This ends in a KO no doubt. I'd favour Wilder about 60/40.

 

Deontay wilder took numerous left hooks over ten from the 250 lb Luis Ortiz who had demonstrated one punch knockout power. At one point Wilder looked like he was out on his feet and he came back to life to KO Ruiz. I have plenty confidence that he could take Ruddock smash. And Ruddock was knocked down and very nearly KOd by a right hand from a 36 year old Bonecrusher who took the fight on short notice and hadn’t won a fight in 3 years. Wilder for all his shortcomings was always in shape in his prime. Had devastating power. An iron chin and could go 12 when needed. Ruddock didn’t beat guys like that. In the rare instance he fought anyone of that description he lost

 

Favour Ruddock in a fight i would love to see

 

To me the last part supercedes any questions about his competition. Shoot, Holmes got plenty of flak for his competition, Wladimir...to me that argument is a slippery slope, despite being based upon a perfectly valid premise.

 

Despite strong initial support for Wilder in the comments, Ruddock is creeping ahead in the polls here at 11-8.

 

Holmes and especially Wlad were facing top contenders of their respective eras. When Wilder was fighting bums, it was AJ who was fighting Top 10 rated opposition, beating the best contenders beside Wilder for obvious reasons.

 

Wilder had to make mandatory defenses, hard to believe the WBC could throw tomato cans at him for that long. There had to have been some merit.

I guess I just have a hard time accepting that a man can hold a righteously prized (historically venerated) world title for five years and beat just one or two worthy contenders.

Five years. Defended 10x the same title Norton, Holmes, Tyson, et al held. Sounds impressive to me, and that's even forgetting his lion-like perseverance and heroism in the losses to Fury.

I'd be interested in checking out a good old topic concerning this subject.

 

The only mandatory defenses Wilder had was Stiverne and Breazeale. I think Fury was named mandatory in the second fight of the trilogy as well. Povetkin was supposed to be one, but got caught on PEDs. WBC didn't have great mandatories for years. Vitali Klitschko didn't exactly fight the top competition either.

 

It's true, that Wilder's defenses weren't exactly the best. It's also true, that he tried to seek out better opponents. He tried to fight Povetkin, but as you stated Povetkin got busted using PEDs.

Whyte was mandated to fight Ortiz and Whyte refused to do so, which is why Ortiz got the shot.

Wilder also sent an offer to Joseph Parker, only for the latter to turn him down.

 

To be completely transparent, I kind of miss those days. Wilder was, for good or bad, really entertaining and had a legitimately Monster shot.

Fury and Usyk are both great heavyweights, but their styles aren't particularly entertaining, save of course the Fury's Wilder fights.

One could say Wilder was like the wild card champion.

 

I agree. To bad he's a shell of himself now.

 

So why did Ortiz got the shot if he was ranked below Whyte and was caught on PEDs too? Wilder blantly ducked Whyte even telling him he's never gonna fight him.

 

I don't know, you'd have to ask the WBC that. Facts are, Whyte had the chance to become the mandatory twice by fighting Breazale and Ortiz, and he declined them both.

That's according to Hearns, who clearly isn't impartial in this case.

He claimed that Wilder told Whyte he'd never fight him, before backtracking after his first loss to Fury and basically begged Whyte for the fight.

 

Ortiz wasn’t genuinely on PEDS. He was on a beta blocker for high blood pressure and got cleared for it. Beta blockers don’t mask anything and they hurt athletic performance. (I can’t remember if he also was on one that made him go pee.) He had served a suspension early in his career for PEDs though.

He was also better than Whyte. When you duck out of an eliminator, the guy who you duck typically takes the title shot.