Understanding Deontay Wilder

You mentioned Parker and Whyte as "top heavyweights" but omitted Fury lol. You're not a serious person.

Just before Fury-Wilder 1 Fury was rated 7th by Ring, was close to even odds and was favoured on this forum to beat Wilder, in contrast to every Wilder opponent since Stiverne 1 at minimum. Fury was highly rated the first time and was rated No.1 the 2nd and 3rd times, so you need to get your facts straight. Wilder didn't have to rematch Fury after the draw and didn't have to rematch him after the first loss but he did, because he's got more heart in his pinky toe than yellow AJ has in his entire body.

Wilder could have got more money at 30-70/40-60 with AJ but was holding out for 50-50, which Hearn/AJ were not offering because they were afraid and thought they could bide their time, age Wilder out. This backfired when AJ got beat down and quit against a 25-1 underdog late sub, short, morbidly obese Mexican fringe contender.

Even coach Reynoso said that Wilder was "a dangerous fight for Ruiz" and that he needed a tune-up against Arreola first. Then Ruiz got dropped, hurt multiple times, had a war with a 40+ semi-retired Arreola and hasn't fought since.

You missed the point totally. None of the fights you listed are relevant to Ruiz and Wilder: Arreola is, Liakhovich is, Alvaro Morales is. They are all mutual opponents and they all fought Ruiz AFTER they'd fought Wilder, so if anything Ruiz should have beaten them more convincingly.

 

"Tall, rangy, explosive, with power to kill. Add advantages like being the A-side and always fighting home"

That's a pathetically short list of advantages, at odds with the reality of the situation.

Wilder's competition improved in quality slowly (important yardsticks being Morales in his 10th, K. Price in his 26th, Stiverne in his 33rd, Ortiz in his 40th and Fury in his 41st) but this makes sense given a number of factors: Wilder's late start in boxing, his limited time in the amateurs before turning pro and the lack of an American heavyweight champion in 7.5 years. AJ was moved more quickly and got destroyed by Ruiz. Many other dominant champions were also upset (even multiple times) by similar quality contenders, Wilder was not.

Wilder has only lost to an undefeated champion who is billed as 6'9, 275 lbs, who had already schooled Wlad in Germany years prior. This isn't compelling evidence that fighters below Fury's level can probably beat Wilder, let alone do so easily.

 

The gameplan's against say, Stiverne 1 and Ortiz 2 were not identical. Breland is not a reliable source because Wilder had thrown him under the bus for stopping the fight and he was understandably resentful. He was defending himself from criticisms and putting the blame on Wilder as a consequence. Breland also came across as a egomaniac, much like Wilder.

"The two quality guys he fought both out boxed him and one of those guys barely beat Charles Martin."

Haters were saying that Ortiz was in his mid-40's when he fought Wilder the first time so logically he must have been about 50 when he fought Martin, who wasn't green or there to take a dive as was the case against AJ. We'll see how 50 year old Ortiz does against AJ's conqueror Ruiz in 6 weeks.

"You say it's rare to see him out boxed"

Who came close to winning a decision against him aside from Fury 1? Fury schooled Wlad (who was a master boxer) so being outboxed by Fury isn't an exposure. The first fight was close in terms of punch stats according to Compubox (84-71) with Fury outlanding Wilder in 9 rounds but by only 1-2 punches in 7 of them! Wilder was keeping the fight close enough so that he was in with a good chance of getting a decision as the A-side, especially if he scored a KD or two. Wilder looked especially bad in the 2nd Fury fight because he was caught totally off-guard by Fury's tactics. In the third fight Wilder did much better. You make the excuse that Fury was not on his best form but I could throw that back by saying that Wilder wasn't either due to the inactivity and brutal beating he suffered second time, which damaged him physically and psychologically.

In the first fight Ortiz was down on the cards after 9 rounds (85-84) then he got KO'd in 10. In the second fight Ortiz was 5-1 up after 6 but one round later he was KO'd, he still had over 15 minutes of fighting without getting KD'd multiple times or KO'd to win the fight on points. Washington was even on the cards after 4 rounds, should have been 3-1 up but then he got stopped in the 5th, with another 21+ minutes of fighting to go. In reality none of Wilder's non-Fury opponents were remotely close to winning a points decision. The later rounds are also the most perilous against Wilder as that's when the damage is adding up and the opponent is slowing down due to activity and pressure, while the opponent typically hasn't been able to make a dent in Wilder due to him minimising his openings and being economical with his punches.

Wilder got dropped once in 43 fights prior to Fury 2: if you were to forensically go through the careers of Lewis or Wlad you could find no shortage of occasions when they were rocked or buzzed, the fact is that Wilder never got destroyed by the fringe contenders that they or AJ did so Wilder's vulnerability is overstated. Wilder can't fight on the inside against Fury, who is not just a brilliant inside fighter but 40 lbs heavier (and even then Wilder took a massive amount of punishment before succumbing, rather than quitting against a backfoot Fury as Chisora and Hammer did). He could however batter 6'5, 236 lbs Duhaupas on the inside, who Wilder was able to dominate more effectively than prime pressure fighters Teper and Miller. He wasn't going to mix it up on the inside with Ortiz because plan A was working and that would have been stupid considering what Ortiz did to Jennings on the inside.

"Ortiz who's best win now is probably Charles fricken Martin, hardly the resume of the top contender"

In what universe does Martin go 12 with Wlad and give him problems or lose a controversial decision to Joyce in Britain as Jennings did? This is laughably dishonest. Vitali's best win could well be a fresh Chisora, who was no better than Jennings. Skilled southpaw power puncher Ortiz also had the problem of most avoiding him before he was 38+, everyone knew how good he was and even Hearn said last summer that "no one wants to fight him". Ortiz wasn't a Chisora, who is so relatively unthreatening that he's KO'd only one of his 14 best opponents (twice KO'd Takam in 8 after 7 rounds of war). You claimed in the past that Ortiz "struggled" with Dave Allen and Malik Scott, which is ridiculous to say the least. Allen landed 4x as much on Whyte in his previous fight as he did on Ortiz and Ortiz stopped him in 7 with half as many punches landed as Whyte, who went the full 10 rounds. No one has ever stopped Allen that quickly. Scott on the other hand didn't win a single round, got dropped three times and landed virtually nothing of consequence, whereas he was able to win multiple rounds against Chisora in Britain and land more shots on Chisora than Ortiz over a much shorter period of time. From the perspective of power, pointfighting, offensive and defensive skills, Ortiz was far superior to Whyte and Chisora and had Ortiz had Chisora's referee, Scott would have been stopped in the 4th round when he spent 15 seconds on the canvas after being dropped.

As I said previously Wilder was not close to being outboxed in any fight save Fury 1. He did just enough boxing to stay ahead on the cards and then stop his opponent in the 2nd half. From a minimising risk and wear perspective it made a huge amount of sense: Wilder was better defensively against Arreola than Vitali, better against Fury 1 than Wlad, better against Szpilka and Ortiz than Jennings, all of whom are regarded as more skilled boxers. Joyce is a far greater offender in this regard: he doesn't just lose rounds to the likes of washed Takam and Hammer; he gets clocked by numerous flush haymakers early in the fight. But we understand that there is method to the madness.

 

It would be a very interesting fight. The first important question is who is the A-side? Because that could go some way to determining strategy for both men.

I don't think a relatively light punching, 6'1, former 190 pounder Holyfield would have a realistic chance at a KO here, especially in the first half of the fight and he may be deterred from going for it by Wilder's power. If Wilder was the A-side he would probably box with Holyfield as he did against Fury 1 and look to keep the fight relatively close. If he was the B-side he'd solely look to setup KO/KD punches (unlike Lewis, who looked to pointfight) which is at odds with Wilder's typical strategy of keeping his nose just in front or at least being competitive just in case it goes 12 rounds.

Holyfield was very tough but not invulnerable (Cooper, Bowe, Ruiz, Toney) and he'd be at a huge height and reach deficit, against the fastest and most powerful big heavyweight he ever faced, who would rather die in the ring than quit and had enough skill to win a bronze medal and outpoint a star amateur gold medalist over 4 rounds on 2.5 years of boxing experience. Holyfield had a tendency to get into wars even when he didn't need to, which would be very dangerous against a puncher like Wilder.

Moorer lacked Holyfield's solid chin and Wilder has a lot of experience against southpaws. I'm confident in saying that at some point over 36 minutes the former 175 pounder would catch a big right hand and it would be over. If Wilder can land on a defensive Fury while also trying to pointfight a bit, he's got a good chance of landing on anyone.