IN 2013, Deontay Wilder told me he was all muscle, bones and skin. Then he showed me the tip of his whip.
Both less sinister and more sexual than it seems, and completely unrelated to cars, the whip in question is the technique behind a punch responsible for a 100% knockdown rate and the The head, according to its owner, was part of the punch that raised it above the others.
“Turn around,” Wilder said, assuming a formal stance next to a heavy bag, as if about to set off fireworks. “Clock.”
He then raised his right arm, locked and loaded, and threw a punch; a cross for most, a cannonball for him.
Ugh.
throb.
Somehow almost comically doing it, Wilder made all the necessary noises before looking towards me as his right hand left its mark on the bag. “At home, we talk about my punches being like a whip,” said the heavyweight boxer from Alabama, then 27 years old. “And the most painful part of the whip is the tip. That’s where I do the damage, right at the end of my punch. Whip tip.”
Standing nearby at that moment was Frank Joseph, a boxing agent who had previously held Wilder’s pads and was now regretting his sudden inability to hold a plastic coffee cup. Waiting for his shaking hands to steady, Joseph can be heard rapping confirmation over a repetitive beat of Wilder abusing the heavy bag. “You can tell how hard he hits just by looking at my fucking hand,” he groans at one point, offering to examine them both. “Whenever you hold the pads for whoever is digging, then you feel it. But I’ve never had shakes this strong before. His power is terrifying.”
To further prove it, there were coffee stains on the floor. These, combined with the dents on the bag, told a story of their own.
“My strength is completely natural,” Wilder said, stopping from hitting the bag. “I really don’t try to knock people down. I’ve always been able to punch hard and stay strong.
“Even when I was a 185-pound (American) football player, I could lift as much weight as the biggest guys on the team. Here I am, a skinny little guy, doing everything the bigger guys are doing. No one can believe it.”
Deontay Wilder ahead of Saturday’s fight with Zhilei Zhang (Mark Robinson Matchroom Boxing)
Both that day and that month, Wilder, who was brought in to fight David Haye before his ill-fated 2013 bout with Tyson Fury, would have his way. He hits things; he swaggers everywhere; he preached; he shouted; he illuminated dull rooms. Better yet, his punching power, once boxing’s Loch Ness monster, now, thanks to 29 straight knockouts, carries with it an authenticity that puts him on display in a London gym without fear of someone criticizing his technique, mocking him for taking a beating. gentle protest, or simply asking him to stop hitting the bag and making so much noise: “BOMB!”
It’s not always like that, remember.
In fact, two years earlier, when Wilder first arrived in London to spar with Haye ahead of the Briton’s bout with Wladimir Klitschko, the 6’8 fighter would never have imagined being in the same ring. a gym, teaching, preaching and going on about tips and tricks. whip and dance between rounds as if at a family barbecue. No, Wilder, then 25, was a completely different proposition. Raw and largely unsure of himself, he has all the athleticism of a basketball player but is still in the process of finding a way to translate this athleticism from the hardwood to the canvas. He is erratic. He is very excitable. He’s so reckless. He kept Haye on his toes without stepping on them or lifting him off of them.
Meanwhile, outside the ring, he is pleasant, simple and well-mannered. He is very grateful for this opportunity. He was unknown, approached only for his stature and amateur achievements (an Olympic bronze medal in 2008 was no mean feat), and behaved accordingly, traveling without flamboyant and graceful, and at the same time accepting all of Haye’s demands, respecting reality. his gym and his city. In other words, he is a joy.
However, by 2013, he was different. Still a joy, the difference now is that you heard him before you saw him. There was a “BOMB!” at every turn – a brave and dangerous mantra in this day and age – and Wilder, once a student, this time comes not as a rival but as one intent on showing that how much he improved and from there, showed everyone why he will soon be the next American world heavyweight champion.
Furthermore, whenever Wilder sparred, which he did frequently that summer, he sparred like no other heavyweight I had ever seen. Completely at ease, veins like ice, he would nonchalantly breeze through rounds with Haye, Mariusz Wach and Filip Hrgovic as if the only consequence of a misstep would be a scraped knee. In stark contrast to other heavyweights, he would go wild, screaming and yelling during rounds, throwing punches, forever letting loose. He will provoke each of his opponents, begging for more, and will even try to inspire and motivate them if he feels they are slipping, almost insulted by their laziness. . “Come on, champion, let’s go!” he would mutter through his gum shield. “This is the Champion’s camp!”
Deontay Wilder (Mikey Williams/Top Ranked)
Wilder was so impressive the second time around, in fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find flaws and errors if only to redress the balance. You’ll be delighted whenever Haye lands a stiff right hand, for example, or whenever Wach stands up in his oven, puts his chin to his chest and corners Wilder against the ropes. At that moment, your eyes will look away from the American’s hands and what he did with them, focusing instead on his legs, those spindly stilts supporting a body that weighs 225 pounds. pound, and you’ll wonder how many rounds he’ll last in a fight. kickboxing contest, or indeed a boxing match, if someone broke his jaw. You’ll take his feet that are smaller than yours as a sign that he’s fallible.
“I always say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,'” Wilder explained when this was later put to him. “My legs look skinny, I know, but they’re all muscle. I just there’s muscle, bone and skin. Think of someone like Thomas Hearns. That guy never had the biggest legs in the world, but boy, can he pack a punch.”
Can’t argue, then you’ll find yourself back in his competition, or lack thereof, the main thought being this: fight someone decent and Wilder could suddenly confused, unstable. He can even go far.
“Style makes fight,” he said. “But so far in my career, I’ve eliminated all the styles I’ve come across by hitting too hard. Once you get influenced by my shots, style goes out the window, man. A man like (Sergey) Liakhovich may be effective and durable against others, but he has not experienced the same strength as me. And you saw what happened to him.”
We did.
But if, like Liakhovich, you need a reminder, what happened to the Belarusian was that he disappeared after just 104 seconds, curled up in a fetal position as he took a sample with one right hand. For further evidence of Wilder’s power, we also saw, a decade after his London trip, what happened to Bermane Stiverne, Artur Szpilka, Gerald Washington, Johann Duhaupas, Luis Ortiz (two times), Dominic Breazeale and Robert Helenius when attacked. by the tip of Wilder’s whip.
