Is Deontay Wilder a modern day Cleveland "Big Cat" Williams ?

Just about everyone is better fundamentally speaking than Wilder, but Ingo was one of the poorer champions in terms of fundamentals. He was pretty poor at everything except that right hand and setting it up.

Williams wasn't as one dimensional and I don't give an f about where his from. And I know that you, in your typical way, is on a quest to downgrade everything about Wilder, but I don't see anything weak about his chin. He stood up for plenty of hard shots, but he was exhausted as well as hurt. Fury did a very very good at utlising his weight against Wilder's skinny legs and also got some tasty body shots in there. It was an all around dismantling.

But now I'm done with you. I've probably already wasted too much time on someone who's not the least bit interested in discussing and analysing, but only in pushing his agenda for or against a given fighter.

 

With a referee that didn’t keep the fight clean I could see Terrell giving Wilder a very hard night, since Terrell knew every dirty trick in the book and would use them if the referee let him. As much as people complain about Fury holding and hitting and rabbit punching he has nothing on Terrell, who was a master at clinching and rabbit punching.

 

To answer the question the OP posted; no. That's an insult to Williams. Williams was a much better boxer and more skilled.

 

I also think Williams was the better boxer, but I don't think his punch was anything like as devastating as Wilder's.

I am referring of course to the pre-shooting Williams.

What the two have in common would be careful managing and hype. Wilder got up there because his big punch made him box office.

My comparison, record wise and certainly not at all in style, would be Roland LaStarza. Careful managing and an imposing record against the second-stringers with a couple of contender wins. LaStarza has the record advantage of actually beating higher ranked contenders in Layne and Bucceroni, but also a couple of losses to lesser lights, which Wilder does not have. Both did very well against the best heavy of the era in their first go around, but were badly beaten in the rematch.

So far Wilder's best win is Ortiz, a fringe top five guy. Not that impressive. It is likely that in retrospect his draw with Fury will be considered his career highlight. He is pushing 35, so a bad decline seems a fair guess.

I think the style comparisons to Baer, Johansson, and Shavers are apt, but all three scored better wins.

In fairness to Mendoza, he was more right than I was about Wilder. I picked Wilder to beat Fury. I can't blame Mendoza all that much for a bit of gloating. His evaluation of Wilder doesn't strike me as unfair at this point.

 

I'd compare him more to Shavers although he's tougher than Shavers but the power is similarly staggering. I think there's a good case that Wilder is better though given he's put everyone down he's faced IIRC. There's some underrating of Ortiz going on, he's one of the better contenders in recent years, old or not.