Wilder's resume

The bookies made Fury close to even money in the 1st Wilder fight. He was universally regarded as a live dog, the question was whether he was close enough to 2015 level to reliably avoid the right hand for 12 rounds and win a points decision.

Ruiz 2 at 284 lbs, untrained in a 24 ft ring wasn't very live. Ortiz was more live in the rematch than Ruiz was (or should have been) in either fight. Wilder's been close to even money on three occasions and will be a big underdog vs Fury, AJ never has never been close to evens. The narrative that Wilder has fought overmatched opposition while AJ's sought out the toughest challenges is completely bogus.

Makhmudov and Wilder will almost certainly never fight but only time will tell how well Makhmudov compares to Wilder. I don't think he will be as successful but we'll see.

 

Why did AJ lose to Ruiz? One reason is he overlooked the 25-1 blob, he had his mind on the hypothetical Wilder undisputed fight. Another is he was fighting outside his UK fiefdom for the first time and the pressure got to him. Another is rumoured to be that he was dropped in sparring the week before by Ruiz's anthropometric doppelganger Joey Dawejko. Another is that although AJ was overconfident, he subconsciously understood that getting KO'd by fat Andy would be the most humiliating loss in boxing history by far because of the optics, so this increased pressure on him further. Then there's the fact that Wilder had obliterated mutual opponent Breazeale in 1 round just 2 weeks before, making AJ's power look Malignaggi-esque by comparison. As soon as AJ had Ruiz down, he was desperate to get it over with because he felt uncomfortable and wanted to notch an impressive performance to break even with Wilder. This played directly into Ruiz's hands however, as it was very unwise to enter a blind exchange with a stubby man who has faster hands and a better chin. AJ got clipped on the temple by a non-puncher, got dropped a couple of times, was never able to recover, gassed out, got dropped another couple of times, then quit.

Top fighters in history sometimes have bad nights at the same time that B/C level opponents have great nights but one measure of a great fighter is their ability to grind out the win regardless. Fury and Wilder have had their bad nights on various occasions against lesser fighters but they always found a way to win regardless, AJ hasn't.

I've never claimed that Wlad and Povetkin were shot but both were diminished from a few years before, both were fighting in AJ's backyard and Wlad was 17 months inactive and coming off a defeat. They are still easily the best wins on AJ's resume regardless of how much he struggled. Ortiz was also surely past his best but still a very good fighter, more or less on par with 39 year old Povetkin. Holyfield allegedly had heart problems in 1994 and blood pressure medication can be a way to mask PED use.

Fury beating Wilder doesn't elevate Wilder but it diminishes him far less than losing to someone like Adam Kownacki or Andy Ruiz.

Betting odds are influenced by massive floods of public money that's true, which is why Douglas was a 42-1 underdog against Tyson. On occasion bookies buy into the hype massively and make Holyfield a 25-1 opening underdog against a post-Douglas, post-over 4 years in prison Tyson. They bought into the hype with AJ and did panic a bit with the amount of money flooding onto AJ, which lengthened Ruiz's odds. But in the absence of these rare events, odds tend to reflect reality very well (there is a section on this in the book "Fightnomics").