Is it like that? I sometimes need to remember how big a place the States is. I suppose fighters from places like Vegas, LA or New York where Boxing is big and the money is plenty have a better chance at getting a bit of a strong backing quickly.
He's still pretty shockingly wild for somebody with that many fights, eight of them for a world championship. There is only so much honing to be done at this stage of the game; he'll be among the "wilder" (no pun intended) champs of all time even if he reigns undefeated another decade.
He's keeps fighting the weakest available opponents, people he knows he can stop (Szpilka, Washington, Liakhovich, Arreola, old Stiverne, they had poor chinny Wawrzyk lined up for a title defense) while avoiding the better prime heavyweights (Whyte, Parker, Joshua, Povetkin a few years back, etc). His management has matched him VERY carefully. They manage to fool a few people, but not the more knowledgeable boxing fans. They must feel Fury won't be back to world-class fighting condition, or else they'd avoid him like they did a few years ago. Wilder turns 33 in a few weeks, if he were wise he would cash out soon against Joshua, before he gets beaten by some journeyman or faded old guy.
Szpilka and Washington are the only ones I consider real question marks heading in (regarding his ability to stop them) and thus am willing to give him real credit for.
He didn't avoid Povetkin. Povetkin took them PEDs on purpose with the intention of getting busted because he was afraid of Wilder. Look at his face when he was ringside after the Szpilka knockout, that's all we need to know.
If you are going to have a smart ass comment, maybe think first. Look at how often JCC fought. And he didn't continue to fight scrubs, or have his manager say he needed more experience before facing other titlist, after he won a title.
There's still civil war sentiments as stupid and absurd as that sounds. Look at America from an economic standpoint. Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, and Kentucky are our poorest five states and in that order. Florida, home of Mickey Mouse, the retirement community for the entire planet, is the 13th poorest state in the union. So yeah, while driving through or some such it might seem like we're somewhere in the same league as NY, but no we ain't. That's just them city boys coming into our states and using their money to set-up something that would be too expensive in their state while still being geographically attractive. And if you're from Alabama and you want to make it, in anything, you need to go to NY. I have mechanic friends who leave because good mechanics are paid like good mechanics in NY. When you get there of course the NY'ers have first dibs. They're from there, they know people, are connected etc. Eventually you'll get hired and can make your name in the local community, but you are starting behind everyone else. Finally, I don't know what it's like to be European but I get the sense that youse have more of a united front. America does not help other America just because they're American. If anything we see ourselves as our major competition. To take it back to my friend the mechanic, his closest friend in NY is a German. They bonded over NY being a hard place to get started. Internationally speaking I make prosthetics no one else on the planet can produce, but, if a man from the UK came up with a method it'd be no bother because I know due to shipping there is no way he can price war with me, Asia is in even worse a boat....that's why Chinese **** is often cheap, it's too expensive for them to ship in the good stuff and make any money. An American with the ability to produce my products would force me to move the bar a notch and come out with something a little more tricky to follow. I'd be more shook about an American moving in on my turf than anyone else. So what i mean to say is sure in a lovely world I'd support my fellow Americans, but the system as is is set up for us to be at odds with one another. It took me months to realize when you guys call me a yank you just mean american. Well, at another forum but you get what I mean. Here when we say yank we mean someone from north east America. Here calling me a yank is like calling me a *****....or a hippie. Reckon to you it'd be like calling a Welshman a Scotch.
Povetkin wasn't on any PEDs. A very tiny, microscopic trace (such a tiny trace would have ZERO EFFECT) of something VADA had recently declared illegal gave Wilder an excuse to duck. He never wanted to fight Povetkin. Wilder was terrified of finally facing a decent heavyweight, especially away from his usual home officials. His friends at VADA rescued him, gave him a way out. Wilder doesn't want to fight any decent heavyweight, not unless that fighter is faded with age like Ortiz, or coming off three years of inactivity and a huge weight change like Fury. Look at how Wilder turned down a HUGE payday, one that would have been by far his best ever, to avoid Joshua.
...yeah. There are tons of fighters with 30+, 40+, 50+ fights but with only one or two against world class ranked opposition. Wilder is certainly up there with the most padded among divisional "elites" but he is surpassed.
This is false. Wilder didn't need an excuse to duck, because the fight was called, through no fault of his own.
