What would Wilder have to improve to have a chance against Wlad?

Straightening the right is a big one, and while it's too late to teach him this now, teaching him to throw a straight left out of the southpaw stance would've been a nice trick. The other thing is developing a quick left hook and the ability to hook off the jab to take some of the predictability away from his 1-2.

Realistically though, Wilder's best chance to beat Wlad is almost always going to be blitzing early and hoping he catches Wlad cold. Even if Deontay works on his stamina, has a solid chin, and develops his all around boxing ability, he's not going to catch up skill-wise to Wlad, who still hits plenty hard enough to KO him. There's just too big of an experience gap there.

But sometimes, the less skilled fighter can catch the better boxer cold and put an end to the evening before the gulf in class can show itself. That's always going to be Deontay's best chance for winning against Wlad IMO.

 

Very difficult to form an opinion on Wilder's chances. I want to like him, but I haven't seen enough. His right hand is fast and powerful, his technique is ridiculous though and at this stage he won't learn new technique either.

I still think he will run into some trouble against the first top 30 guy he faces. We'll have to see how he deals with that.

 

Straighter punches defense footwork etc all of this will come in time I agree with others he needs rounds bad put him in there with Arreola, Adamek or Thompson until he goes past 8-10 rounds don't put him anywhere near a Klistschko

 

I know there wasn't much time to judge him on but I thought Wilder looked pretty good for as long as it lasted. He's got the tools to work with. He didn't look amateurish like he did against Harrison.

 

He needs to fight a durable opponent, Liakovich has been stopped 4 times and has had about 6 fights in 7 years

Somebody like this, only a heavyweight version :

Now THIS is the likes of an opponent who tests power, check out the guys he's been in with and surivived against, Perez, Masternak, Haye, Huck, Maccarinelli, Glowacki, only ever bene stopped once, in the last round by Wlodarczyk in the 12th

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=19825&cat=boxer

 

He looked decent tonight---we all know damn well he will be back in training , improving his skills . No doubt he will improve. I do like the idea of putting him in against an iron chin like arreola , etc... Would be a great test and stepping stone. That needs to happen THIS year for sure

 

If people are still going to make excuses to hold him back, then they should stop saying he would kill the likes of Fury and Pulev and anybody not called Klitschko, when all of these contenders have much better records and formline than him

 

You said "And as long as he's improving, I don't see why there's such a rush to step him up in competition"

I see why, so we can actually see what he's made of, yeah he's big and strong and athletic and hits hard, as Barry Jones rightly said, we already knew all of that, we didn't learn a damn thing that we didn't already know, he's a 5 year pro ffs, Liakovich has had literally 6 fights in the entire 5 years Wilder has been a pro, and has lost 4 of them, 3 by KO, let's see Deontay in an actual ****ing fight for once

 

what I noticed is that when he throws the jab, he is wide open to counters, because he doesn't snap it back, and leaves his hand coming back too slowly, also, his footwork, and as someone mentioned above, straight punches, because any decent HW will be able to avoid them, the power and speed is there, all that is left to do is just improve the rest

 

He's been pro for 5 years, had almost 30 fights won all by KO, and yet we still know nothing about him other than that he's big and hits hard, either he fights somebody GOOD or I don't wanna know, why this "baby steps" approach with him? Is his chin really as bad as the rumours say? It must be, no other reason for protecting him this much, jesus christ to think I gave Khan a hard time for being matched with feather fisted/ has-been opposition at the start of his career, his 30 fight resume makes Wilders look like a pile of goat shi.t