By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder gets a lot of flak from people in the boxing world because they can’t figure out why he’s able to do the things that he can do in the ring.
At 6’7”, Wilder has the perfect combination of hand speed, one-punch power, and mobility that other fighters would die for. Fans don’t understand how a fighter that only weighs 228lbs is able to generate so much punching power that heavier fighters in the heavyweight division can only dream about.
It’s strange because you would assume that a heavyweight in the 240s to 250s would be able to punch with more power than a fighter that weighs only 228lbs, but Deontay is living proof that it doesn’t how much you weight. It only matters what kind of power you were born with.
“Just like my career, many times, people make excuses for me,” Wilder said. “They say different things; even criticize me because they can’t understand why I’m able to do what I do, and how I do it when I do it.”
I have to agree with Deontay. People don’t understand how come he’s so good, so their first instinct is to criticize him and look for fighters that they believe can dethrone him. Thus far, 35 heavyweights have tried and 35 have failed. I’m just saying.
Deontay has a nice stay busy fight this month against Polish heavyweight Artur Szpilka (20-1, 15 KOs) on January 16 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This fight should give Deontay the chance to open his toolkit and pull out a number of tools to display them to the fans before he shuts the door on Szpilka and scores a knockout.
I’m hoping that Szpilka can make a fight of it because the boxing world needs to see more competitive fights, not less competitive ones. The promoters are being so careful nowdays with their fighters, and we’re seeing way too many mismatches. That’s why Szpilka vs. Wilder hopefully will be an entertaining fight.
I just don’t know that Szpilka will be able to hang for long without getting knocked out once Wilder starts connecting with his big power shots.
“Whatever Deontay is saying just makes no sense. I don’t believe in his words, and I will be able to prove it in the ring on the 16th. But for now, it’s just talk by Deontay,” Szpilka said.
Szpilka will need to try and overcome Wilder’s superior athleticism in the ring on 1/16, because he’s not as gifted as the talented American fighter. Szpilka can punch hard, as his record would indcate. However, most if not all of Szpilka’s knockouts have come against 3rd tier fodder instead of the talents in the division. As such, you have subtract all 15 of Szpilka’s knockouts and all of his wins except for his lone win over a quality heavyweight in Tomasz Adamek from 2014.
When you take away all of the fluff wins and knockouts that Szpilka has on his resume, you’re left with a record of 1-1. That’s it. Szpilka’s only win was against Adamek and his only loss was to the second best heavyweight he faced in Bryant Jennings.
There is only a week to go before the two of these hard hitting heavyweights get inside the ring. Szpilka obviously won’t be able to match Deontay for boxing skills, athleticism, talent or mobility, but he can try and apply some pressure. This is one of those “Rocky” type fights where a guy is picked from the pack that arguably doesn’t deserve a shot at a title by merits, but who is given a shot to try and change their life.
Szpilka needs to overcome the huge gap in talent between him and Deontay by fighting smart and as aggressively as possible. I normally wouldn’t recommend that any fighter bum rush Deontay Wilder, but that’s what I think Szpilka is going to need to do in order for him to have a chance at winning this fight. If he fights like he normally does in slowly shuffling forward at a snail’s pace, I think this fight is going to be over with in a moment. I think Wilder may score a 1st round knockout if Szpilka slowly plods forward on January 16, because he’ll plod right into a perfectly timed right hand to the head and wind up on his backside.
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