Wilder's resume

Mak almost got stopped in one round by Omarov and was stopped at the start of 2 (though Omarov is a southpaw and a puncher and Mak was young) and almost got taken out in one round by Nistor but just about weathered the storm. This was also with 12 oz gloves rather than the 10 oz gloves used in the pros. A journeyman who fought Mak and sparred Wilder said that Mak was more heavy handed while Wilder was faster and more accurate. In my estimation Yoka and Ajagba aren't punchers on par with Wilder.

 

I'm countering one absurd argument with another. Hagler hadn't even turned 33 and only retired because SRL refused him a rematch. It was a close fight but SRL had a slightly longer layoff than Fury without even the luxury of two warm up fights (though SRL didn't put on 10 stone). Most had Fury winning but it's not like Fury dominated the fight in terms of punches landed round by round, it finished 84-71 in Fury's favour but Wilder scored 2 KD's and was one second away from winning the fight against one of the top 3 HW's in the division. Conversely, AJ was on the brink of losing to a 41 year old, 17 months inactive, defeated in his last fight Wlad and only got the win because Wlad didn't go for the kill for whatever reason.

 

Yeah, active champ Hagler was shot to bits at 32 and a coked-up SRL coming off a 3 year layoff cherrypicked him. His retirement was because he was a shot fighter, not because SRL wouldn't give him the rematch having already beaten Duran and Hearns.

 

The Fury who beat Wilder is better overall. 27 year old Fury was more athletic, early 30's Fury is physically mature and stronger, heavier (more effective wrestling, more striking power, more strike resistance) more experienced, craftier, even more confident, more skilled and versatile.

There were several reasons for his difficulties with Wallin. One is he didn't take Wallin seriously and expected another Tom Schwarz, another is Davidson wanted him to be too light for the fight (I believe the lightest he'd been since the Cunningham fight when Fury was 24.5) so he came in overtrained and drained, another is that Wallin's father had recently died a la Buster Douglas's mother, so he came in more motivated than usual and another is that Fury fought over 9 rounds with a cut, which gradually become more severe to the point that his vision in one eye was almost totally impaired, though Fury still won anything between 7-10 rounds. To top it all off Wallin is a good fighter with size, athleticism, skills, mental strength and southpaw stance. He will prove it was not a fluke (if he hadn't already done so when he schooled an inactive Breazeale 10-2) when he fights apparent top contender Whyte in Britain a month from now.

 

We've been back and forth on the rankings before and the negatives associated with them. The fact that Ruiz jumped to No.1 after beating AJ according to some rankings, so that AJ beat "the best HW in the world" when he avenged his 7th round no mas defeat to the 25-1 late sub via decision is completely absurd, more so considering that Ruiz came in untrained and 35 lbs heavier than he was when he fought shot to bits retired 45.5 year old Ray Austin 3.5 years before. AJ actually gets tons of points for that in the rankings, when in reality glaring weaknesses had been exposed and AJ had fallen badly in the eyes of almost everyone. There are multiple other means of assessing quality aside from ranking bodies: watching fights, examining amateur and pro records, bookmaker odds, comparative performances etc.

Klitschko had been undefeated as champion for almost 10 years, on a 22 win streak (15 KO's) and defended his titles a consecutive 18 times with 13 KO's against all of the contenders over this period. He had 23 defences in total against the greatest variety of body types, styles, stances and sizes in heavyweight history and very rarely lost clear rounds in these fights. He had also just gone life and death with highly ranked undefeated champion AJ in AJ's backyard and was an inch away from winning the fight, so it's no surprise that he was very highly ranked. Povetkin was 4th in 2020 after he KO'd Whyte in Britain on top of his past achievements but realistically Povetkin was a shot fighter at that stage. The Ring had Wilder as the 3rd best HW at the end of 2016, the 3rd best in late 2017 and the 3rd in late 2018, having beaten 6th ranked Ortiz and drawn with Fury while AJ beat 39 year old Povetkin. Wilder rose to 2nd in 2019 when AJ lost to Ruiz and he destroyed AJ mutual Breazeale in 1 and KO'd 6th ranked Ortiz again. Wilder first entered The Ring's top 11 in 2013 when he was a former fast-rising amateur Olympic medalist, 30-0 with 30 KO's, fresh of a 4th round KO win over Fury mutual Firtha. He was highly regarded well before he schooled 3rd ranked Stiverne for the title and defended that title 10 times over 5 years with 9 KO's.

Fury's fight with Pianeta was a sparring session; Davidson wanted Fury to get rounds for match fitness and Fury wanted to play possum with Wilder in attendance. Fury performed better against Wilder than Ortiz did, who was higher rated than the likes of Whyte and Pulev and had good comparative performances. Fury's performance against Schwarz was good, albeit against a limited opponent and we've already discussed the Wallin situation, the only question is how good Wallin is. All in all I thought Fury displayed tremendous versatility and fighting spirit in the Wallin fight and dug out a convincing 9-3 type win with one functional eye for most of the fight. Fury demolished Wilder yes but he adopted an aggressive gameplan that Wilder didn't expect and Fury is outstanding. Despite his relatively poor condition and rustiness in the 1st Wilder fight, he was not 17 months inactive or 41 years old and Wilder was never in any danger of being taken out, in fact he came within a second of taking Fury out and knocked him down twice. So most thought that it reflected well on both men, so much so that Wilder was a slight favourite going into the rematch.

If AJ fights Fury and wins or at least gives Fury a very hard fight, the argument that AJ is better than Wilder will be strong. But until that happens or Wilder loses to a 25-1 underdog, there isn't any conclusive case for it.

 

I've never claimed that Wilder was a great boxer but if he were an athletic and rangy but unskilled bum as many believe then an older and more experienced star amateur like Chakhkiev would have taken him apart. The paradox is that if his boxing skills actually are bum-tier then he must be the most athletically gifted boxer of all time to have as much success as he's had. And if he is indeed that athletic then he's a fantastic fighter anyway because boxing is as much about athleticism as skill, if not more.

It's funny that you mention Duhaupas' KO win over Helenius because Wilder stopped Duhaupas before that when he was coming off his win over Charr. Helenius is a skilled boxer, a good amateur with lots of height, reach and power, yet he was not able to outbox Duhaupas and Duhaupas was able to grind him down and KO him brutally. The consensus at eyeonthering is that Wilder won every round against Duhaupas, with the most extreme score the other way being 98-92 Wilder, with the consensus being that Helenius and Duhaupas were even stevens at the time of the 6th round stoppage. Povetkin's win was impressive but he had just failed a drug test and Duhaupas, who Wilder had beaten up and stopped several fights prior, was a 24 hour sub who had just flown in to watch the fight. Povetkin was also the 3rd best fighter in the world for several years.

Ruiz isn't close to the top 10 in reality and I will die on this hill. He'll get beaten by any long boxer with a jab and footspeed. Even slow and chinny Whyte would probably beat him, stubby non-puncher paint dry already has, Hunter would, Yoka would, Hrgovic would, Joyce would, Dubois would, Ajagba would, Bakole would, Ortiz may or may not be too old, Sanchez would, Wallin would, Helenius would if motivated, Hughie would, Kabayel would and Makhmudov would. I'd give many others decent or good chances. If Ruiz ever comes back to fight live opponents he will get exposed again.

Teper was only juiced to the gills for a relatively short period: late 2013 to late 2015 by my estimation, spurred into action after his SD win over the unexceptional Timur Stark. He goes from a fighter who struggles to put away some mid-low level journeymen to a destroyer who is taking opponents out faster than rival contenders with 4/5 KO's against his best collection of opponents thus far and beating the soon to be Charr and Helenius-conqueror Duhaupas by an 8-4 margin. How many rounds do you think a shot Liakhovich would have survived with the roid Kebab? 1? 2?

Arreola was in the Ring list of top 10 contenders when Stiverne beat him twice and become the first man to canvas KO him, the Arreola who went on to give Kownacki war at 38.5 and go life and death with Ruiz at 40, 18 months off, coming off a defeat, surviving both fights. The wins have aged very well, there's no question about it. Taking Wilder the distance is no mean feat either; only Fury imitated him there and never dropped or stopped Ortiz (among 40-odd others) was knocked down four times and KO'd twice. Considering how much Stiverne got hit in that fight, he displayed a fantastic chin.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Audley Harrison to disregard the worth of the amateurs. Obviously it's not the be all and end all but Ruiz lost to all of his decent or half-decent amateur opponents with one possible exception whereas Stiverne had wins against powerful SHW's who were skilled boxers and successful amateurs. The skills and experience acquired from being a successful amateur are very helpful in the pros and it's an indication of technical ability.

Hopefully Wilder doesn't retire after Fury (in all likelihood) beats him again and a fight with Ruiz gets made to build his confidence back and bolster his resume vis a vis AJ with an easy KO. Helenius would be more dangerous and offer less prestige, so Wilder-Ruiz is the logical fight to make.