To be fair, is Wilder really as bad as people make him out to be?

I would say Povetkin is more skilled than Ortiz but AJ isn't. He doesn't have a shred of the ring IQ Ortiz naturally has.

 

His corner threw in the towel in the second Fury fight because they'd seen that he'd mentally checked out. That whole last round was just a mass of negative body language and backpedaling.

He redeemed himself in the third fight though.

 

Joshua is way more versatile than Ortiz, and more willing to learn and integrate new skills. Ortiz is basically content to fight with the same limited techniques he always had, which admittedly he utilises well, but there's no real variety to his game.

 

Wilder is actually not a power puncher. He favors speed over brute torque single kill shots and prefers peppering his opponents over one shot knockouts (but gets the job done in spectacular fashion). At least that's what I gather from watching most of his fights. No doubt a very talented boxer, however. What I'm trying to say is he was not heavy handed like George Foreman but his speed and quickness made up for that deficit.

 

He is a 1 trick pony.
All be it a great trick that he has perfected.

if you can take that away from him as an opponent… he becomes below average & quite beatable.