Wilder's chin.

It's not total glass but it's not good either. Molina rocked him, Sconiers dropped him hard too and he isn't a big hitter. His chin is clearly a weakness any decent puncher can hurt him. He was lucky Ortiz punched himself out in the 8th and couldn't capitalise on the success he had in the 7th.

His defence is a bigger issue than his chin. Even though he fought a super cautious fight against Ortiz, avoiding throwing any overly wild shots like he usually does he still got caught by that check right hook and then the left hand that hurt him.

 

Fairly weak yeah. Maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10.

 

If Ortiz had exhausted himself in the previous round, he sure didn't look that way since he was still raining punches on Wilder when the ref intervened as if stopping the fight during that round.

 

I saw him get temporarily wobbled by Szpilka as well.

 

His chin isn't granite but it's tough enough that combined with his will power and conditioning it clearly isn't a problem. I think he proved a fair bit last night.

 

I think it's around 6.5-7
His recuperative power and heart is 8-9.

 

Still suspect, no question. Yeah, he beat Ortiz, but let's not over-estimate the significance of getting a "Hail Mary" KO in a fight he was losing (despite whatever the corrupt judges said), against an inactive, past his best and somewhat unproven contender - who may be quite a bit older than his official age of 38, AND who we know is on BLOOD PRESSURE meds.

 

There didn't seem to be much snap on them though. Ortiz looked fatigued to me which is understandable all things considered (age, meds, had been hurt himself earlier in the fight etc)

Don't be too surprised if he hurt or stopped in future by someone considered less of a puncher than Ortiz.

 

Yeah agreed with the hail mary and that on my card he was behind on the rounds, BUT seriously - you can't watch that fight and say Ortiz is not a bad bad man? That was a huge win and a huge effort to stand up to that.

 

How had he hurt himself earlier in the fight?

 

Wilder hurt and dropped Ortiz early-ish (rd 5 maybe?). From that point on, Ortiz' seemed to slow a bit and have less snap on his punches.

 

He was scrambled by a glancing blow to the temple and what’s more it was an isolated punch, by this I mean he hadn’t been getting caught beforehand so there was zero cumulative effect to explain why a glancing blow had him in so much trouble.

Ortiz did catch him almost immediately afterwards with a straight right flush in the face and I believe the only reason Wilder rode that blow was because he was moving backwards away from the impact.

I didn’t learn anything new about Wilder from this fight, we knew all of what he showed us last night:

• He’s a poor boxer and won’t win on points with fair judges
• He has tremendous right hand power but needs distance to deliver it
• He has heart and will get up from a knockdown or come back after being hurt
• He has an awful defence and is wide open after being hit
• His jab is less than average
• He’s gun shy when faceing an opponent with power, who can deliver it!
• In his fear/anxiety to win he’ll foul you trying to finish it

 

True! I had forgotten that.