Who is greater Joe Joyce or Deontay Wilder

Amazing how much respect Wilder's title reign commands given the opponents he faced. Best wins outweigh a title run from my perspective and there isn't really an argument to be made for Wilder there. I don't believe in rewarding Wilder for spending his prime fighting Szpilka, old Arreola, Washington, old Stiverne. He then failed every time he stepped up to fight a legitimate top 5 guy. Ortiz and Stiverne 1 are really his only wins you could debate are top 10.

Wins over Dubois and Parker blow anything Wilder has completely out of the water.

 

Assuming no upsets, Chisora would have likely been derailed by Stiverne and never won a title. Both would have been derailed by Ortiz.

 

Ortiz was universally top 5 ranked, Stiverne 1 was 3rd ranked with Ring.

On Wilder's gauntlet, Joyce picks up enormous damage over the 39 fights on the way to undefeated Ortiz and then gets schooled + stopped as he did vs Zhang x2.

 

Holyfield lost to a glass chinned blown up light heavyweight southpaw. Rubbish eras.

 

"The boxing history books will judge Wilder as a very poor WBC belt holder who ducked all of the elite HWs until he faced Fury"

History books will say that team Joshua and team Wilder let greed get the better of them and blew the superfight but that Wilder would have probably won.

Stiverne wasn't elite in my view but he was 3rd ranked by Ring, Ortiz was universally top 5 ranked for years, which one can easily argue is elite. Wilder also fought Fury in a trilogy; the 2nd greatest of the post-Klitschko era, who Joshua hasn't fought.

While Wilder's pre-Ortiz quality of opposition was relatively poor, he still goes down as one of the greatest WBC heavyweight belt holders in history. Sam Peter by contrast (and one could name a litany of others) had 0 defences, his title win being an old Maskaev and he'd have failed against Stiverne just as Arreola did twice. He and others like him go down as "very poor WBC belt holders".

 

"Which goes to show how belts mean little"

Almost 80% in the poll disagree. Clearly your assessment of "resume" isn't seen as anywhere near 1:1 with greatness.

"how good a job his people did to protect him"

Abel Sanchez protected Joyce from a post-Wilder Ortiz. Joyce could have never done what Wilder did and neither could Chisora, who would have got schooled/KO'd by Stiverne as Arreola did twice. Joshua also falls on Wilder's gauntlet prior to Fury 2: if fat Andy can make him quit he's not going to make it.

 

Presumably Sanchez screwed up if he tried protecting Joyce from Ortiz. No reason to think Joyce loses as he has the better resume of the two and would be far closer to his prime than a 40 plus Ortiz.

If Joyce has such good management why the Hrgovic and Zhang fights?

 

Let’s remember Joyce was a good amateur with wins over the likes of Hrgovic, in his prime he could have beaten Ortiz

 

Wilder won Olympic bronze within 34 months of putting on a pair of boxing gloves on the cusp of 20, beating No.1 ranked HW amateur and future Olympic Gold medallist Chakhkiev in Russia. He was a decent amateur.

Ortiz won the Pan-American games and the Cuban national championships but he was unfortunate to be a contemporary of Savon and Solis, among others on the Cuban team. Decent amateur. But amateurs and pros often don't translate, hence Solis was an amateur great but did very little in the pros and little compared to Ortiz.

If Abel Sanchez thought that 33 year old Joyce wasn't ready for a post-Wilder 1 Ortiz then I seriously doubt any version of Joyce beats a pre-Wilder 1 Ortiz or the Ortiz who mutual Joyce opponent Jennings fought. A "prime" Joyce doesn't beat (frequent Cuban amateur victim) Zhang either.

 

A prime Joyce beat Parker which is better than any win Ortiz has. Dubois is also likely better than anyone Ortiz beat.

 

Dubois is probably better than aged southpaw power puncher Zhang, at least the non-green version that Joyce didn't fight. Yet Zhang, about as old or older than Ortiz, smashed Joyce twice and always would.

 

Zhang appears to be a far bigger puncher than Ortiz. He's also a much bigger man and physically stronger. Ortiz doesn't have his attributes

 

"Zhang appears to be a far bigger puncher than Ortiz."

Based on? If one looks at the Jennings fights Ortiz appears to be a "far bigger puncher" than Wlad. They're all big punchers and are perfectly capable of hurting and stopping Joyce. Parker didn't have the attributes but compare how he performed vs Cojanu compared to Ortiz.

Ortiz, even after getting knocked out by Wilder, had the attributes for Joyce's trainer to say "Longtime top 5 ranked southpaw power counter-puncher with vast experience, skills and heart? No-go for Joe Joyce." I'm going to trust his judgement here.

 

You don't have any case to claim Joyce losing to Zhang hurts him vis a vis Wilder when Wilder lost via kayo to the very same guy. It makes no sense for him to duck Ortiz and fight Dubois and Hrgovic from a competitive standpoint.

As far as Ortiz goes, he held no belt and Joyce had little reason to fight him in the first place. That's probably a bigger factor in the fight not happening than his ability. Dubois and Hrgovic were hugely risky fights for Joyce but he fought them both.

 

Joyce lost to Zhang while undefeated coming off his best performance vs Parker, in his "prime". Wilder lost to Zhang as a shot to pieces shell of himself, coming off a pathetic loss, with multiple brutal TKO/KO defeats previously, who should have retired years prior.

Sanchez has already told us that Joyce couldn't handle a skilled southpaw hard-hitting counter puncher stylistically, even well past Ortiz's best. As if we needed any confirmation Joyce went on to be upset by exactly this kind of fighter. Maybe Joyce's trainer knew something you don't.

Dubois was green when Joyce beat him, he'd never been in a real pro fight and turned out to be a multiple time quitter. Hrgovic was seen as vulnerable coming off a hard stoppage loss against an underdog for a world title, on fairly short notice and Joyce had nothing to lose at that point.