If AJ beats Wilder, I would say its between Wilder and Pulev for AJs sixth best opponent he has beaten after Wlad, Povetkin, Parker, Ruiz and Whyte.
That is debatable. He could have just met a bad style match for him. I would be amazed if 1 Joshua and wilder fight in December and 2 Joshua actually beat him.
They are both past their respective primes No debate on that Both chins & confidence have been cracked.
I'll expose @Mitch87 with a few excerpts before I give my own opinion. July 2018 Mitch: Luis Ortiz > Whyte and Parker. He admits that Wilder beat a better fighter than Whyte or Parker, which by his own logic puts Wilder well above Whyte or Parker. August 2018, 9 and 10 switched in October 2018 Mitch: Wilder is the 3rd best heavyweight on "resume", KO'd 6th ranked Ortiz, who KO'd 9th ranked Jennings, who is above Chisora and by extension Takam (who Chisora KO'd). September 2019 Mitch: Wilder is the 4th best heavyweight as of 2019/early 2020, above Parker (5th) and Povetkin (6th). Fury didn't beat Wilder because he got a draw in America and I'm sticking with the official result, so he's ranked outside my top 14 (below Chisora, Kownacki and Dubois), despite dethroning "ATG" Wlad and making Chisora quit. Joshua's hasn’t beaten anyone inside the “top 20” since 2020 and yet he's still in Mitch's top 2. Come December 2023, Joshua may not have beaten a “top 20” fighter in 3 years, while Fury will have beaten at least three (and excluding Fury, Ring ranked Wilder 3 2nd and Whyte 4th). June and October 2021 Mitch: "Puncher" Alen Babic would DESTROY “high Euro level” Otto Wallin and “low world level” Deontay Wilder early-mid!
@Wig It would be Joshua's best win. One indicator here is that Joshua will probably be the underdog vs Wilder, whereas against his best opponent previously (41 year old, dethroned 17 months prior Wlad, in Britain), undefeated titlist Joshua was a 75-25 favourite. Wlad also let Joshua off the hook (Vitali claimed he told Wlad to be conservative and pace himself after he scored the KD), something Wilder would not do. Wlad and Wilder's best opponent by a wide margin is Fury and Wilder did considerably better in fight 1 than Wlad did, doing enough to get a draw at home with 2 KD's. And even in the trilogy fight where Wilder was stopped for a second time, he also scored 2 KD's. So in 2 of 3 fights vs Fury, Wilder did better than Wlad. It's a crude comparison for a variety of reasons but it's definitely not meaningless either. Mentally it's a huge mountain to climb for Joshua, probably the biggest of his career. He's lost 3 of his last 6, hasn't fought a tall puncher since Wlad and has only fought one puncher of any description in his last 9. He's the shorter man vs Wilder, probably still slower with a single shot, less powerful with the right hand, mentally weaker and far less experienced vs tall fighters. He knows this. Hearn knows. His family and friends know it. Perhaps Fury has taken enough out of Wilder to the point where Joshua can KO him without needing to land too many shots. But regardless of how fragile Wilder may be, it's extremely dangerous for Joshua. If Joshua wins he'd have to get huge credit, most people think he's going to get sparked. Even @Mitch87 secretly thinks so.
Nobody can watch watch Wilder and Ruiz's respective fights against Ortiz and Arreola, or Whytes fights against Helenius or Fury, and try to convince me that Ruiz or Whyte are better wins than Wilder.
Using that logic: Povetkin better than Wilder due to receptive fights against Duhaupas. AJ and Wardley better than Wilder due to their respective fights against Molina. Wallin and McDermott better than Wilder due to their fights against Fury. Kownacki better than Wilder due to theirs peformances against Washington. Chisora better than Wilder due to their peformances against Spzilka.
Povetkin performed far worse vs Firtha than Wilder Molina came to fight against Wilder, which was unprecedented. Arreola (who Wilder beat better than Vitali) destroyed him in 1, better than Joshua or Wardley Wilder came closer to beating Fury than Wallin or McDermott (who fought novice Fury), especially in fight 1 where he got a 2 KD draw, champ P4P No.2 Wlad couldn't lay a glove on Fury and lost 8-4/9-3 at home Kownacki got dismantled by Helenius twice, who Wilder KO'd in 1 Chisora (who admits he's never wanted any part of Ortiz, even at 44) performed far worse vs Fury than Wilder in 2/3 of the fights and he lost controversially to Helenius in a 12 round war In nearly all of these cases we're also talking post-Wilder: Szpilka got destroyed in 1 by the Polish bridgerweight who crushed Babic, one fight after Chisora. It's like Whyte's win over Povetkin or Povetkin's win over Rahman. Kownacki also smashed through Szpilka, stylistically Szpilka couldn't deal with pressure and his chin was destroyed by then I like the Wilder and Ruiz comparisons because they have a lot of mutual opponents AND Ruiz fought them all after Wilder. Morales, Liakhovich, Arreola and Ortiz. Wilder did far better against fresher but non-green versions of these fighters, every single one of them. Where will you rank Wilder and Joshua in the top 10 if Wilder KO's Joshua?
