By Jim Dower: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) enjoyed a huge advantage in punches landed over his opponent Johann Duhaupas (32-3, 20 KOs) last Saturday night in their fight at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.
Showing off his ability to throw a lot of punches when needed, the 6’7” Wilder connected on 326 of 587 punches for a connect percentage of 56 percent, according to CompuBox stats. That’s a very high connect percentage for a heavyweight.
That’s at the level of a talented welterweight like Floyd Mayweather Jr. Wilder just couldn’t miss anything he was throwing last Saturday night in his 11th round knockout win over Duhaupas. In contrast,
Duhaupas, 32, landed only 98 of 332 punches for a 30 percent connect percentage. What’s striking about that number isn’t the fact that Duhaupas’ percentage was so low, it’s the small amount of punches that he landed in comparison to Wilder.
This is a 3 to 1 punch connect advantage for Wilder. 30 percent connect percentage isn’t that bad. The fact that Duhaupas was able to land with that connect percentage suggests that Wilder’s defense is leaky and that he needs to use more head movement in the future, and to keep his guard up more.
S/O to Johann Duhaupas for accepting the challenge and being such a tough opponent. You did your country proud bro.. pic.twitter.com/63CnAuwy4h
— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) September 27, 2015
Wilder was forced to throw a lot of punches in this fight because of the swelling under his left eye that developed in the 2nd round. Duhaupas was cut on the bridge of his nose in the opening round from a hard right hand from Wilder.
The cut got worse as the fight wore on until it was pretty wide cut. Duhaupas took Wilder’s best shots for most of the fight without flinching. It wasn’t until the referee Jack Reiss decided that he’d seen enough in the 11th round that the fight was finally stopped.
Duhaupas made things easy for Wilder by talking into his shots. I suppose Duhaupas wanted to walk forward in order to pressure Wilder and get within his punching range so that his power wasn’t as formidable. But by walking forward all the time, Duhaupas found himself walking into punches all night long.
Things got bad for Duhaupas in the 5th round when Wilder began to unload on him with uppercuts. That was the round where Wilder caught Duhaupas against the ropes and hammered him with nonstop uppercuts.
While the other punches that Wilder had thrown in the fight hadn’t bothered Duhaupas too much, the uppercuts clearly did, as he looked like he was in danger of having his head smashed in that round. Duhaupas was clearly in duress in the 5th. After the round, Reiss made sure that he checked on Duhaupas to make sure he was okay and that he could continue fighting.
Wilder used the Ali shuffle in the 6th round of the fight, as he started to get really comfortable in the ring. It was no longer competitive due to Duhaupas’ work rate dropping off to next to nothing. He was more concerned with trying to block Wilder’s incoming shots than throwing any on his own.
Duhaupas was warned after the 6th round ended by referee Jack Reiss that he needed to start putting in some effort by throwing some punches or else he was going to stop the fight. But that didn’t seem to change anything with Duhaupas because he continued to be little more than a punching bag in rounds 7 through 11.
Duhaupas was checked out by the ringside doctor after the 10th round after taking an enormous beating in the round from Wilder. Duhaupas ate a lot of uppercuts in the 10th, and he was lucky to survive the round. After the round ended, Duhaupas told the ringside doctor that he was okay and able to keep fighting.
In the 11th, Wilder, sensing blood in the water, came right after Duhaupas and bludgeoned him with power shots to the head. Wilder then drove Duhaupas to the ropes after hitting him with four solid shots to the head. Reiss stepped in between the eager Wilder and the beaten Duhaupas to stop the fight.
Wilder was well ahead on the judges’ scorecards going into the 11th round. They had him up 100-90, 99-91 and 99-91. I’m not sure that you could give Duhaupas any of the rounds of the fight because he was taking a beating in every round.
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