Evander Holyfield perfectly sums up Deontay Wilder after Ortiz KO

GiveMeSport

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By Harry Reynolds

Published Mar 4, 2018

Wilder stopped the Cuban in the 10th round in New York

Deontay Wilder took his professional boxing record to 40-0 with a dramatic victory against Luis Ortiz last night.

'The Bronze Bomber' recorded his 39th stoppage in the process, with the fight coming to an end in the 10th round after Wilder's power finally became too much for the Cuban.

Ortiz had rocked Wilder though and was widely believed to be winning on points, despite the judges' own views, so he managed to at least provide the first real scare of the Alabama man's career.

The result means Wilder hangs on to his WBC world heavyweight belt, and keeps alive dreams of a clash with Anthony Joshua later this year after he's battled Joseph Parker.

Further down the line, Tyson Fury could come back into the reckoning, and has gone on record in the past to say he would easily beat the American, calling him a 'bum' after one victory.

Wilder is thoroughly flying the flag for American heavyweight boxing, a nation which once dominated the division.

In fact, Wilder fought last night in front of just 19,000 people, compared to the 90,000 Joshua attracted to Wembley for his fight against Wladimir Klitschko last year, but the lack of big stars means a reduced interest.

Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are all household names who've held the world title, but those names are few and far between now.

And the last of those made a perfect point about Wilder after last night's victory.

Holyfield admitted that 'Bronze Bomber' had gone a long way to extinguishing the doubts the former champion had about him, managing to recover when Ortiz was well on top.

And he says Wilder deserves a lot of credit for the result he earned in New York.

"There looked like a lot of things you can do, but this guy had 200-something amateur fights, was the very best and had been in the game a long time, you think that he could walk him down and get him, but that didn’t happen," he admitted.

"He showed me that he knows a lot more than what I thought he did, because I thought if you keep hitting him and pressuring him to the body you could get him.

"But he got hit to the body, he got hurt and all of that, and he won. You’ve got to give the man
credit for what he did."

Wilder has been criticised in the past for a lack of quality in his opponents, which still stands, but last night was his first true test, and he nearly failed it.

That will give hope to Joshua and Fury, but one thing that cannot be doubted is his sheer power, and he is capable of stopping anyone.

Holyfield thinks that Wilder actually embraces his style and unorthodox appearance for a boxer, but manages to use it to his advantage.

"The fact of the matter is, he doesn’t look like a fighter," he continued. "He looks like a basketball player, and there’s a lot of things he doesn’t do right.