Deontay Wilder Still Not Getting the Respect He Deserves After Beating Luis Ortiz!
By Joe “MoJoe” Mollric
March 4th, 2018. I woke up like I do every morning. I brushed my teeth like I always do and went downstairs to make coffee like I always have. I opened my laptop to read the news just like any other day and that’s where I saw it, more people doubting Deontay Wilder…. Just like always. Less than 12 hours after the most difficult fight of his career I thought I would be reading interesting comparisons between Wilder and Anthony Joshua, feeding the hype train for their impending showdown. I thought there would be some type of acknowledgement of the grit that he showed coming back after being hurt in the 7th round and digging deep to score a KO against the odds. I didn’t see a whole lot of that. Instead there was one phrase that continually showed up:
“….Deontay Wilder, But….”
Yeah I know, it’s more of a sentence fragment, but it keeps popping up everywhere I go and I can’t help to notice it always contains some sort of backhanded compliment followed up by a slight that seems to erase whatever props showed up in the initial statement.
“Nice win for Deontay Wilder BUT, he still loses to Anthony Joshua!”
“Impressive KO for Deontay Wilder BUT, his technique is still awful.”
“Congrats to Deontay Wilder on his win BUT, Ortiz is old and slow.”
Why does the boxing fan base refuse to acknowledge Wilder’s achievements for what they are? Maybe his technique is lacking and he might not rub people the right way all the time, but 40-0 with 39 KO’s is absolutely undeniable yet everyone seems to be focused on his limitations. Let’s face facts! This is a guy who has knocked out every opponent he’s been in the ring against (Bermaine Stivern went the distance with Wilder, but then got KO’ed in the rematch). That includes his Saturday night where he took on the most avoided fighter in the division. Luis Ortiz never got a title shot because he’s a bad matchup for almost everyone. Nobody wants to face an undefeated southpaw with serious knockout power but Wilder took him on knowing that with a win over Ortiz, nobody could doubt his heir to heavyweight supremacy. But that’s not the case…
We get it, he’s light – so was Evander Holyfield. He swings wild – Tyson didn’t? He hasn’t fought anybody, oh wait, can’t use that one anymore. Let’s talk about that straight right for a minute. It’s hard to find a more destructive punch in all of boxing. In the heavyweight division, the killer swings are usually hooks, uppercuts or an overhand counter shot. Where this gives Wilder an advantage is, the straight right is a compact power punch that can land at any point in a fight without much notice. There’s very little reaction time to work with when trying to defend against this punch. Combined with the power in which Wilder lands it can put an opponent at a distinct disadvantage. We all see how Wilder capitalizes on this (yet somehow he receives criticism for this too). The second the straight right connects, the challenger stumbles backwards and Deontay wastes no time capitalizing. He rushes the staggered fighters with a flurry of swooping hooks and haymakers. Pundits say it’s sloppy technique but I see somebody throwing punches from every angle that smothers a dazed and confused boxer and it nearly always ends the same way.
Instead of trying to tear down this champion with an extremely unique skill set, we should be celebrating this run as something we haven’t seen before. Or you can keep making up excuses as to why this guy needs to be kept outside of the discussion for the great ones. But I’m very curious to see what happens when a sloppy, skinny Deontay Wilder jumps the pond and upsets Joshua. By then I expect the doubters to be out of excuses but then again, haters are going to hate!
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