Deontay starches Usyk and blows the division wide open, Usyk hasn’t been in with that kind of dynamite
Fury was able to expose his inability to fight inside. The Parker fight was just like the Russo fight in the olympics. Zhang is a bad matchup because they fight the same style and he’s bigger with good power of his own. Breland claimed Wilder fell in love with his power at a certain point and stopped working on developing other aspects of his game.
When you get used to knocking people over and then get brutally knocked off that path multiple times in a trilogy, I think it's over for most people. The fear of losing is gone, you've had it happen now, what's another one? I'm not saying people think that way deliberately, but subconsciously and subconscious thoughts are crucial in sport
For me I have to look at who it worked against. As soon as he went in with anyone around world level it didn’t work at all. Anyway mate. I wish you and your close ones a lovely Christmas.
I think people like Wlad gave boxing fans this impression that most fighters can fight to 40+. I don’t think that’s true though. We can see major decline in the likes of Fury, AJ and Wilder. Whyte also. Ultimately, they all became too inactive. Long gaps between fights and age is a bad combination.
Although its hard to say how good Wilder's level really was, but I do really feel he took a huge amount of punishment from both Fury fights and that destroyed his punch resistance.
Now wouldn't that be interesting... ? One can only hope. But the problem is that Wilder's typically been able to starch guys who conveniently stand still in front of him and give him time to wind up that big right hand. Usyk doesn't stand still....
Add that he lost his aura of invincibility and self-confidence. A similar thing happened to AJ even though AJ is obviously a far more technically sound fighter who didn't duck the competition. It's not just that though. It happened to Mike Tyson too. Being at the top sharpens some men and dulls others. A lot of fighters get a belt, they get the recognition, they get the money. All of their dreams come true. It's nobody's dream to be the longest reigning champion, the one with the most defenses, or the best legacy. Once they lose their hunger, they lose their focus, and they slide right off the mountain top. The real question is why some of them maintain as long as they do. Wilder is the poster boy for succeeding far beyond your talents in a sport that you probably have no business being in. Wilder is the worst boxer I've ever seen who got by entirely on raw athleticism and cherry picking opponents. The only time that I've seen his likeness is once before in Freddie Mills who was briefly the light-heavyweight champ in the forties. Shannon Briggs and Lamont Peterson had more skill. The fact that the governing bodies allowed him to fight the competition that he did and call them title defenses is a joke. Corruption from the WBC and corruption from his promoters before they finally cashed out with the Tyson Fury trilogy.
That method works against most power punchers, if you can push them back their power becomes less relevant. Obviously with fury having the size advantage and recuperation powers it helped him implement it. Some others tried but got beat In the process. it worked on many power punchers in history and will continue to, it’s not really an exposure of one fighter it’s just styles. Everyone’s darling (Mike Tyson) also got “exposed” like this.
It’s more than just one. The first one is he got exposed in the second Fury fight. People always knew Wilder had limited skills and they were fully exposed in that fight. After that fight, it broke Wilder mentally. When he started talking about his water being spiked, bodysuit being heavy, Fury having an egg weight, etc., I knew he would never recover mentally. I think Wilder thought it was very possible he could lose but I don’t think he ever imagined he would get beat from pillar to post the way he did. You get beat down like that and it makes you question everything. Then he fought Fury a third time for the same thing to happen again minus the knockdowns. I think those two fights damaged him big time. I don’t think he was ever the same physically from those fights. The fights after that reflected it. He’s nowhere near the same athlete anymore.