DEONTAY WILDER has declared himself to be โthe hardest-hitting puncher in boxing historyโ. Looking at the stats and talking to insiders, maybe he is.
Of all the heavyweight champions, Wilder has the highest knockout percentage. He has 41 early wins in 43 fights (one draw) for a 95 per cent score. That puts the WBC heavyweight champion ahead of Rocky Marciano and Vitali Klitschko (87 per cent), George Foreman (85 per cent) and Mike Tyson (76 per cent). Granted, Wilder has something of an advantage over Foreman and Tyson because heโs yet to experience a late-career fade.
But all those punchers were very different fighters to Wilder.
Colin Hart, the veteran Sun reporter at ringside for almost every major heavyweight title fight since Henry Cooper challenged Muhammad Ali at Wembley Stadium in 1966, regards Wilder as โa one offโ.
He said, โThere are very few people who can take people out the way Wilder does. In the lighter weights there was Julian Jackson, but up at heavyweight, Wilder is a one off.
โPeople talk about George Foreman, but he didnโt do it with one punch the way Wilder does.
โHe dropped Joe Frazier six times (when he took the title from him in 1973) and Mike Tyson didnโt do it with a single shot either.
โAnthony Joshua doesnโt. He hit Dominic Breazeale for seven rounds before stopping him โ and Wilder did it with one punch.
โJoe Louis took a few out with one punch when he had his โBum of the Month Club,โ but he didnโt do it at the highest level and Rocky Marciano used to wear them down.
โAgainst Roland LaStarza in their rematch [in 1953], Marciano hit him on the biceps for round after round until his hands dropped. That was Marciano. He hit them hard for round after round. Thereโs no softening up with Wilder. Look at Ortiz in Wilderโs last fight. He had hardly been touched โ and then it was over.โ
Matthew Macklin, commentating on the fight for Sky Sports, said Wilder was being โout-maneuvered, out-boxed and out-thoughtโ. The hesitancy shown against Ortiz was understandable given the crisis Wilder had to come through when they had boxed 20 months earlier.
Wilder fumbled his way through the fog after running onto a shot late in the seventh when going for the finish after dazing the Cuban.
He was woozy throughout the eighth and most of the ninth as well, but survived and once his head had cleared, Wilder started landing the jab that measures opponents for his right hand and when the right hand lands, the fight is either over โ or close to being over.
Ortiz gave him problems in the rematch as well. Two of the judges had him winning five of the opening six rounds and he appeared to be only seconds away from winning the seventh as well before a gap appeared in his defenceโฆ
The expression on the Cubanโs face after he got to his feet just after the refereeโs count reached โTenโ wasnโt just: โWhat hit me?โ It was also: โHow did that happen?โ
Asked for a reaction at the press conference later, Ortiz described his feelings as: โShock,โ before adding: โHe only needs one second.โ
Up to the point that right hand landed, Ortiz had been so comfortable; manoeuvring Wilder around the ring with his feet and keeping him quiet with his judgement of distance and the promise of his quick counters should he miss.
But as Ortiz has discovered twice, one false move against Wilder and the fight is over.
โYouโve got to bob and weave when you box Deontay,โ said Wilderโs coach Mark Breland (alongside Jay Deas), the 1984 Olympic gold medalist and twice a holder of the WBA welterweight championship as a pro.
โHe has long arms and long legs and itโs hard to get out of the way. If you pull back, youโre going to take punches. Those long arms and long legs means heโs always only a step away from you. You think heโs too far away โ and then he catches you.โ
Wilder is 6ft 7ins tall, his reach has been measured at 83 inches and on the end of his right hand is no place to be. โItโs the whip at the end of the punch where he gets his power,โ said Breland, who says his shoulder has been โknocked out a couple of timesโ when taking Wilder on the pads.
โI tell Deontay to keep them on the outside and then shoot the long right hand. I tell him: โDonโt wait to punch, use your jab, use your jab to find them, then lock the right hand and throw it straight out.โโ
Breland was also a lanky puncher โ few welterweight champions have been taller than his 6ft 2ins โ who used the one-two and accepts that sometimes Wilderโs work isnโt exactly textbook.
He sighed when asked about his fighterโs technique before answering: โThe straight punches have more power, but even the sloppy rights hurt.
โIf Deontay hits you, he hurts you.โ
Breland believes the right hand that dropped Tyson Fury in the last round of their first fight was one of his sloppier shots.
โIt was an overhand right that caught Fury,โ he said, โand hitting the canvas woke him up. Thereโs a lot of power in the overhand right, but when he throws the straight right hand, they are not going to get up.โ
The rights that have subsequently felled Breazeale and Ortiz were more to Brelandโs liking. Against Breazeale, Wilder saw the gap, quickened his feet and pounced, while his reading of the Ortiz finish was: โI found my measurement, I saw the shot and I took it.โ
Steve Farhood, the Hall-of-Fame writer and former editor of The Ring, said: โFor one-punch power, I’d rate him [Wilder] at the top, along with Joe Louis and perhaps Jack Dempsey.
โAmong non-champions, I still consider Earnie Shavers the hardest hitter I’ve ever seen.
โWhat makes Wilder different is the unique leverage he gets on his punches. He isn’t very heavy, especially by today’s standards, but his reach is exceptionally long, and when he lands that right hand in the right place … well, we’ve seen the results.
โThere are different kinds of power. George Foreman was, of course, a huge hitter, but his power was very different from Mike Tyson, whose crunch was very much created by his tremendous hand speed.
โLouisโ biggest punches were short, Wilderโs are long right hands. Both devastating.โ
Wilder took around two minutes to find Breazealeโs chin โ his 20th in the opening round – and rather longer to find the gap against Ortiz.
Breland said, โIโm always telling him: โTake your time because you donโt want to miss a lot of punches. Get your own pace and everything comes together.โ
There were moments in the Ortiz rematch when frustration appeared to be creeping into Wilderโs boxing. According to CompuBox, he only landed 23 punches in the opening six rounds and at times he beat his chest and shook his arms loose in an attempt to get himself going and find some kind of rhythm. Ordinary and outboxed for so long in that fight, Wilder went on to produce what we named the best knockout of 2019.
How does he do it?
At around 220lbs, Wilder is no behemoth โ Fury called him a cruiserweight ahead of their first fight (when he came in at a light 212) โ but he has a puncherโs physique with his broad shoulders and slim waist, thereโs the leverage, the whip at the end of his punches โ and the timing.
โTiming is a big part of it,โ said Hart. โDeontay gets them when theyโre coming forward or throwing punches themselves and that doubles the impact.
โBut heโs a natural puncher. You canโt teach someone to punch like that. You can teach someone to punch properly or to punch better, but you canโt teach him how to punch that hard.
โTo beat him, you have to keep your chin out of the way for 36 minutes.โ
Only Bermane Stiverne (in their first fight) and Fury have lasted the full 12 rounds with Wilder. Both had to get off the floor to hear the final bell and had Wilder not hurt his right hand in the fourth, he may well have stopped Stiverne. He made amends in the rematch, though the Stiverne he knocked out inside a round was a blubbery, rusty and ill-prepared version of the fighter who had outslugged Chris Arreola for the vacant WBC belt three-and-a-half-years earlier.
Fury had more notice, but still, the routine wins over Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta were seen as no sort of preparation for challenging Wilder in Los Angeles in December, 2018.
‘Wilder, if you lose concentration for one second during those 36 minutes, the fight is over’
Tyson broke the news of the Wilder fight to Richie Woodhall during a dinner evening in Cannock โ and Woodhall didnโt believe him. He thought Fury was joking and decided against sharing the news with the diners.
In the build-up, previous opponents were quizzed about Wilderโs power โ including Audley Harrison. He reckoned Wilder โalmost had my eye out in sparring one dayโ and recalling the right hand that sent him on his way to a 70-second defeat when they fought, Harrison said: โThe punch came at such an unusual angle and so fast there was no getting out of the way.โ
For so much of their fight, Fury did a good job of seeing Wilderโs punches coming. He made Wilder hesitate, think and then when the champion did let his hands go, they were telegraphed swings, often thrown out of frustration.
Breland says we will see more punches โ especially jabs โ from Wilder in Las Vegas on February 22. โThe first fight, Fury was moving away, joking and talking and distracting him,โ said Breland. โDeontay wonโt pay attention this time.
โHe needs to jab more in the rematch. He let Fury out jab him in the first fight. Deontay was waiting, waiting, waiting. He was waiting for Tyson Fury to throw punches so he could counter, but I told him: โWhile youโre waiting, heโs hitting you and scoring points.โ
โDeontay will knock him out this time. He just has to let his hands go.โ
Hart is in agreement. โIt might be like the first fight with Fury out-boxing him,โ he said, โbut with Wilder, if you lose concentration for one second during those 36 minutes, the fight is over.โ