Tweet
Boxing fans have a huge capacity for delusion and selective amnesia when it comes to fighters they like. Wilder fans are no different, and in many cases substantially worse. Truth is, almost everyone had Wilder down on the cards prior to the stoppage, and looking like hot garbage against a chinny fringe top twenty fighter called in at short notice. Somehow that's morphed into Wilder being up on the cards against a skilled and tricky southpaw who would give anyone, including Fury, major problems (but not Bryant Jennings apparently).
The knockdown was a beautiful one, and no one will dispute that, but it doesn't retroactively alter the whole course of the fight up until that point. Wilder looked bad. So bad in fact that my wife, who knows nothing about boxing, actually burst out laughing when he threw those two counter rights against the ropes.
A fighter of Wilder's supposed calibre should have no problems with Szpilka. Instead, Szpilka controlled him, outboxed him and made him miss wild, whatever the official scorecards say (and anyone using those to justify their opinion shows a very clear bias). This is not some top fighter here. It's a guy who went life and death with Mike Mollo and got comprehensively beaten down by Jennings. I accept that he may have improved since then, but he was still only given a five week training camp to prepare for Wilder, so that has to be taken into account as well.
If Wilder fans are honest with themselves, they'll accept that this was a poor performance, saved from disaster by a last minute KO. Instead, it seems they want to whitewash the fight and distract attention with the same tired old digs at Fury that people have been using for years.
No one picked David Tua to beat Lennox Lewis based on his ability to turn fights around at any time with his power. And if they did then I hope they're not making the same mistake today. Power is seductive, and leads you to believe wild amazing things about your fighter, whatever their faults. In Wilder's case it's making people believe that if he only lands one shot on Fury's chin he wins the fight. After all, Fury's been dropped by Cunningham, Pajcik etc, etc. Forget the fact that Jonty can't box for toffee against a moving target, has the most atrocious balance and technique I've ever seen in a top level pro, and gets befuddled by a second-rate southpaw using rudimentary feints and head movement. None of that matters apparently.
The knockdown was a beautiful one, and no one will dispute that, but it doesn't retroactively alter the whole course of the fight up until that point. Wilder looked bad. So bad in fact that my wife, who knows nothing about boxing, actually burst out laughing when he threw those two counter rights against the ropes.
A fighter of Wilder's supposed calibre should have no problems with Szpilka. Instead, Szpilka controlled him, outboxed him and made him miss wild, whatever the official scorecards say (and anyone using those to justify their opinion shows a very clear bias). This is not some top fighter here. It's a guy who went life and death with Mike Mollo and got comprehensively beaten down by Jennings. I accept that he may have improved since then, but he was still only given a five week training camp to prepare for Wilder, so that has to be taken into account as well.
If Wilder fans are honest with themselves, they'll accept that this was a poor performance, saved from disaster by a last minute KO. Instead, it seems they want to whitewash the fight and distract attention with the same tired old digs at Fury that people have been using for years.
No one picked David Tua to beat Lennox Lewis based on his ability to turn fights around at any time with his power. And if they did then I hope they're not making the same mistake today. Power is seductive, and leads you to believe wild amazing things about your fighter, whatever their faults. In Wilder's case it's making people believe that if he only lands one shot on Fury's chin he wins the fight. After all, Fury's been dropped by Cunningham, Pajcik etc, etc. Forget the fact that Jonty can't box for toffee against a moving target, has the most atrocious balance and technique I've ever seen in a top level pro, and gets befuddled by a second-rate southpaw using rudimentary feints and head movement. None of that matters apparently.
Comment