Wilders pre title competition is underrated

Mandatories are one thing, but if you're being thrown deliberately soft ones then that's where people will start asking questions about the org in question.

Arreola is a classic case of this - you could name loads and loads of fighters better than him in 2016... So many it's hard to even know where to start.
(Hell why not... Wlad wasn't retired in 2016... There's levels upon levels between even old Wlad and any version of Arreola).

When you look at Wilders defences more broadly it's telling just how many relevant fighters he didn't fight...
He actively ducked the undisputed fight with Joshua.
He made no effort to unify against Parker.
He actively ducked Whyte, despite it being almost certainly bigger than any payday he had before Fury.
He had no interest in going back to fight Povetkin (because drugs cheat), before then fighting Fury (despite being drugs cheat).

You can then throw in the likes of Ruiz, Chisora and even Pulev, who would all have been very easily in his top 2 at very least.

To be fighting a ruined Stiverne a second time along with very mediocre fighters like Szpilka and Arreola when much better guys are out there tells you exactly how confident his management was in his ability - not very - and the fact he lost to every contender he fought post Fury (and very arguably every actual contender he ever fought) tells you precisely why he was kept away from the more dangerous fighters in the division.

 

Naah , wlad was never wbc , and since wilder defended his wbc title we can of course only take wbc contenders into account .

You nevertheless probably have a point he was not very active in seeking fighters from other sactioning bodies . Here he might indeed have ducked opponents without risking of being stripped of his wbc belt

Thats the multiple belt downside

 

This.

 

Shavers lol

 

I think it was a bit of both. Genuine lights out power and the opportunity to sell out on your shots because your opposition were such a bunch of puddings.

 

Hmmm, Povetkin maybe?

 

I always confuse you with Jacko and thinks your posts are going to be much better than they are.

 

I think povetkin was a great athlete and dangerous for wilder , indeed a fight was planned in 2016 in russia. But povetkin tested drugs positive twice , was blocked by wbc for a year and fined for 250000 $ . The fight of course was cancelled . But - in no way we can blame wilder for this , say that he ducked povetkin in 2016 .

A similar question for 03.2018 : what wbc fighter was ranked higher than ortiz ? Fury ? Yes . But he was man enough to face face fury in december 2018 after beating ortiz.

again : where he ducked ? He faced title defence after title defence on short intervalls and yes , he finally lost his soul to fury .

Now of course he is shot and should retire .

 

This sounds like a spoof thread. I'd honestly forgotten about Wilder's pre-title run but thanks for highlighting how awful it was.

Just as another fun fact off the top of my head, didn't Wilder fight Jason Gavern before getting a title **** against Stiverne? Like, was Gavern his eliminator? Wilder's career is maybe the most protected and padded of any HW champion in history.

 

Dominic Brezeale had a good chin

 

He could've gone back and fought him as a voluntarily anytime.

The excuse not to was the failed drugs test - a reasonable and principled stance, until you don't apply the same standard to the likes of Fury and Ortiz.

What member of the Cuban government was ranked higher for integrity than Castro in 2016?

Orgs throw up mediocre fighters into their top tens and even mandatory positions all the time... It doesn't make them legit by itself... For example, you'll remember the WBC put Francis Ngannou in it's top ten when his boxing record was 0-1?

He was being called out by fighters way better than he was mandated to fight and he swerved them - Whyte and Joshua fights were there on a plate for years and he refused to fight either of them.

Where did he duck? Right there.

And also... When you have a belt, you can get great fights made very easily because everyone's after your title... The fact Wilder has such a poor resume DESPITE that advantage means he can't claim to be avoided, he just didn't want smoke

 

Or Arreola.

 

"And Liakovich was shot to smithereens when Wilder fought him."

I don't think he was. But whether he was or not, Liakhovich went on to give Joshua-conqueror Ruiz a very close 10 round fight 16 months later. Ruiz also only lost to Parker because he was fighting in New Zealand, in America/Mexico if the same fight had played out it's a Ruiz win.

Ruiz also seems to have struggled with legendary trial horse Alvaro Morales, who Wilder stopped in 3.

In his first 32 fights Wilder was beating many of the same opponents that other contenders/potential contenders were, usually in better fashion.