Wilder didn't have epic fights to win. This is probably his problem - he farmed excellent statistics for himself on ordinary opponents, but could not level up to become really great. Wilder didn't have epic fights to win. This is probably his problem - he farmed excellent statistics for himself on ordinary opponents, but could not level up to become really great.
I think you have heard of such a boxer as Valuev. He has incredible fight statistics: 50 wins with only two losses. But there is hardly anyone who considers him great (or interesting for something other than his size haha), and even I will say that most sports fans, if they are not from Russia, most likely have not heard of him.
Wilder is of course the more flamboyant boxer, but I see similarities between these two professional boxing careers.
It's because Wilder just rely on his God given talent, that is one punch KO, but if it fails then there is no back up. He is not a technical boxer, he can't dance inside the ring, and that is his downfall.
And when he faces a technical fighter in Fury, he was really exposed. He got lucky in the first fight because he was able to knock down Fury, but Tyson get up from the best shot of Wilder and beat his ass on the second. So he is good but not on the elite level, and most Heavyweight boxers that is considered great are somewhat technical, and has both power and boxing IQ.
Wilder switched to boxing late compared to other professional athletes so his technical problems have obvious reasons (if I'm not mistaken, he chose boxing after basketball), but it must be admitted that he has grown professionally throughout his career and although such a large gap in athletic youth cannot be completely corrected, Wilder has achieved a lot.
By the way, if in a fight with Fury he would have been a little more successful (for example, Fury could have remained lying down after knockouts), then now we would evaluate Wilder in a completely different way.
But Fury get up from that big punch and finished the fight although the decision is somewhat sketchy. And it doesn't matter if he switched to boxing late, I mean he keep on winning fights at Barclays and then become a champion and there are talks about him and AJ fighting for the undisputed until Fury derail all the plans. So he is fighting Helenius, which I think he can defeated. But it might be a different fight if it will be Usyk or even Andy Ruiz Jr.