Deontay Wilder sends a message to his detractors

By Boxing News - 04/07/2014 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: With three 1st round knockouts in his last 4 fights, #3 WBC heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s) still can’t please his critics. They take shots at the talented 6’7” Wilder no matter how well he does in the ring, and he feels that he’s in a situation where he’s going to take flak no matter what he does. As such, Deontay decided to fire back at his “haters” today by describing the dilemma he’s in each time he fights. If Deontay knocks his opponents out, fans think it’s because he doesn’t talent to out-box them. But if he out-boxes them, then fans will say he couldn’t knock them out.

As the late basketball great Wilt Chamberlain once said “Nobody roots for Goliath.” It’s so true.

Deontay recently scored his 31st consecutive knockout win in destroying Malik Scott by a 1st round knockout last month. Immediately after the knockout, some boxing fans started saying that Scott took a dive because of how seemingly easy the knockout was for Deontay. But what fans failed to realize is that Deontay has the kind of size and power to where he makes knockouts look easy because of the leverage and just plain awesome power he gets on his shots. He’s like a tall home run hitter, who doesn’t look powerful because of his size, but it’s the leverage that creates the power.

That’s why Malik hit the deck from a seemingly weak looking left hook. It was the leverage that Deontay got on the punch that made it so incredibly powerful.

Deontay has the biggest fight for his career coming up later this year when he faces the winner of the Chris Arreola vs. Bermane Stiverne fight for the WBC heavyweight title. This is going to be Deontay’s proving ground, as he’ll get the chance to prove his many detractors wrong by blasting out the winner of that fight, and then taking the WBC heavyweight title. Having the WBC title will set Deontay up for either a unification bout against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko or the winner of the Mike Perez vs. Bryant Jennings fight. Either of those bouts would be significant for Deontay, we’re talking the quality of the heavyweight division.

I rate Wlaidmir, Perez and Jennings as the best heavyweights in the division by far. If Deontay can beat them, then he’s going to be a champion for a long, long time. It’s quite possible that Deontay could have the same long world title reign that we’ve seen with Wladimir. The only difference is that Deontay would have decent quality opposition to face during his reign. Wladimir has had nothing but fluff since capturing the IBF heavyweight title with a win over Chris Byrd in 2006 to start his reign.

Where it’s going to get really interesting for Deontay is if he can win his first 50 fights by knockout. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again. If Deontay can knockout his next 19 opponents to break Rocky Marciano’s record of 49-0 by going 50-0, with 50 knockouts, Deontay is going to be biggest star in the United States. By then guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr. will have retired, and Deontay will be the top fighter in America.



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