Deontay Wilder vs Audley Harrison

has supposedly been signed, and may be added to the khan diaz card. khan-diaz is already on the same showtime card as judah-garcia, add wilder and harrison in and you have a nice little show. I like Wilder, just wish he wouldnt take so long to step up in competition. Harrison is a step up (as bad as that sounds) but not the step we wanna see. Fight a top 10 ranked HW wilder god dammit! lol should make for a fun night of fights, but if im not mistaken this is going head to head with sergio's card on hbo? what is the deal with these head to head cards. needs to stop asap. rant over...

I'll consider anything less than a first round KO a disappointing result for Wilder.

i dont mind the fight because wilder has been fighting such low class fighters that you cant just throw him in there with a top 10 HW. he has been fighting top 500 HW caliber fighters. he is just so raw. thats why they are moving him so slowly. he isnt ready for real competition. at least audley has been in there with some legit competition although he is a joke after the fiasco with the haye fight.

hopefully he doesnt have too much trouble with audley though.

I hate that Wilder is being moved so slow, but at the same time I understand it. Wilder was the least experienced fighter from the USA 2008 Olympic Boxing class. It was surprising that Wilder out of all the other long time amateurs from the US won a medal. Wilder is 27 years old, its about time he stepped up his competition. Hes going to turn 28 this year. He should be targeting a title in 2 years or so. They have to start moving him up a lot faster. He already has 27 fights. Knocking out Fraudly shouldn't take him too long.

WTF ever happened to up & comers fighting a lot when they're trying to make a name for themselves. Guys used to fight 6 or 7 times a year when they were young, stepping up gradually, yet purposefully.....these kids these days are fucking lazy, building records just enough for a money fight, then, blam.....nothing.

flapanther2001 wrote:WTF ever happened to up & comers fighting a lot when they're trying to make a name for themselves. Guys used to fight 6 or 7 times a year when they were young, stepping up gradually, yet purposefully.....these kids these days are fucking lazy, building records just enough for a money fight, then, blam.....nothing.

I wouldn't necessarily say that they are all lazy. I think a lot of it has to do with how boxing has changed over the years, with regards of getting HBO/Showtime dates and PPVs. If you take a tougher fight and happen to lose, it makes it so much easier for a guy to say I'm not going to fight him he has a loss or two on his record. And it makes it that much harder to get that money fight. For example, with Thomas Dulorme, he took a fight against a tough opponent in Abregu and got knocked out. It could've been stepping up too early seeing as he is only 23 with 16 fights, but it sets his career back a little bit. That loss has now set him back in getting any kind of big money fight. Now I'm not saying he is a great fighter or can be the next big thing or anything, but you don't hear anyone asking to see the guy fight again on a good paying card.

You have to look at it from their perspective as a business. This is their job. And it isn't something a lot of fighters can do for a long period of time. Being a boxer, for the most part, is a short career. So you build up to that big money fight and cash in. I'm not saying I like it, but it is the way it is. You take the safe fight and look for the best opportunity to make the money while you can.

I would love for fighters to take on tougher fights and step up sooner, but if it jeopardizes their ability to make money, managers and promoters will not allow it to happen.

EnragedSlayer wrote:

flapanther2001 wrote:WTF ever happened to up & comers fighting a lot when they're trying to make a name for themselves. Guys used to fight 6 or 7 times a year when they were young, stepping up gradually, yet purposefully.....these kids these days are fucking lazy, building records just enough for a money fight, then, blam.....nothing.

I wouldn't necessarily say that they are all lazy. I think a lot of it has to do with how boxing has changed over the years, with regards of getting HBO/Showtime dates and PPVs. If you take a tougher fight and happen to lose, it makes it so much easier for a guy to say I'm not going to fight him he has a loss or two on his record. And it makes it that much harder to get that money fight. For example, with Thomas Dulorme, he took a fight against a tough opponent in Abregu and got knocked out. It could've been stepping up too early seeing as he is only 23 with 16 fights, but it sets his career back a little bit. That loss has now set him back in getting any kind of big money fight. Now I'm not saying he is a great fighter or can be the next big thing or anything, but you don't hear anyone asking to see the guy fight again on a good paying card.

You have to look at it from their perspective as a business. This is their job. And it isn't something a lot of fighters can do for a long period of time. Being a boxer, for the most part, is a short career. So you build up to that big money fight and cash in. I'm not saying I like it, but it is the way it is. You take the safe fight and look for the best opportunity to make the money while you can.

I would love for fighters to take on tougher fights and step up sooner, but if it jeopardizes their ability to make money, managers and promoters will not allow it to happen.

i agree. they cant really just fight for a living fighting 200 times in a career and losing 40 times while still getting a title shot eventually. it doesnt work like that anymore. someone like wilder is getting brought up slowly because of how the business works.

panther ill agree with.the others who take a different view have some very good points about the nosence if you lose a fight or two.yes unfortunetly that school of thought has some reasoning.BUT its far from absolute.example victor Ortiz got his ass kicked his last 2 fights and a few fights before that quit against madiana..Ortiz when ready has at least 2 big fights left even if he losses his next one..the Russian that just lost to Bradley did himself plenty of good.that piece of crap fraudley is still getting good paydays.why.lopez the guy that dumpted Ortiz got his ass kicked by alvarez but stillhas gotten himself to a position to make money for 2 more big fights win or lose.
I don't think the loss hurt david prices abilty to make money either.the out of shape loss by chisora to fury didn't stop him from making big paydays nor will his big ko loss to haye.
stop defending the handling of wilder..by the way how many big money fights has he had.zero.
wilder has had a good dozen big fights as a amateur.27 so called fights as a pro.fighting in the worst division in history.if fraudley is a step up that tells you this guy fought the biggest stiffs in the world..hes handled that way because folks in the know may feel this guy isn't the real deal.there protecting him in a division of big time bums.maybe 3 or 4 know how to fight.the rest are nothing.
seth Mitchel just got koed.did that throw away his ability to make money or fight on tv..not yet.david lemuex lost 2 fights in a row.he still has a big fan base in Canada and a decent payday or 2 are still in his reach.
how many more examples do you want.we can say tv dates ppvs etc etc as reasons why they keep wilder on hold.realy what ppvs is he ready for.what main attraction on tv as a headliner does he warrant.zero is the anser.title shots are a dime a dozen today.everybodies a champ.wilder has yet to qualify for one of thoses mickey mouse titles.
as fans how can we bitch about donaire or alvarez etc etc complaining we want him to fight so and so only yet then defend wilder career with excuses that this is why they wont let him fight anyone.there bringing him up the right way because of the business of boxing today and if heaven forbid you lose a fight your career in making lol money is almost over.bullshit.especialy in a division for almost a decade is the worst ive ever seen.
times have changed.im not so sure about that.fighters have changed bigtime.that im sure of.there candyasses for the most part..i love how several on here fall for this bullshit calling out stuff.gee this guy called out so and so on twitter lol and they other guy is afraid because he didn't say yes..yep guys keep falling for that bullshit.
don't buy that crap.in a division filed with plow horses and if they felt they had a therobread then why the avoiding of fights.maybe the reason is that there guy is a plow horse also and they know it.maybe a little better plowhorse then most of them but still a plow horse.so lets suck in all you folks with our matchmaking a pr stuff.yep the pt barum school of promoting.

powerpuncher wrote:i dont mind the fight because wilder has been fighting such low class fighters that you cant just throw him in there with a top 10 HW. he has been fighting top 500 HW caliber fighters. he is just so raw. thats why they are moving him so slowly. he isnt ready for real competition. at least audley has been in there with some legit competition although he is a joke after the fiasco with the haye fight.

hopefully he doesnt have too much trouble with audley though.

...heres my problem with that resoning.ill agree maybe wilder isn't ready just yet for a top ten but lets not say hes raw.the heavy division is loaded with so call raw fighters then.how many of them realy have world class deep experience.hes not ready for real completion.what real completion is there .guys like wach charr... helinus is ajoke etc etc.if that's seasoned real competion then wilder will continue to fight stiffs and wella some comish will rank him as a mandatory.against another stiff and that's his big step up.yes guys like price fury michell are raw also.very raw.i don't see wilder against any of thoses either.

I'm not saying these guys have to step up so quickly, but they fight maybe twice a year against nobodies and want credit for having an undefeated record. If you're gonna fight nobodies, fight every month. It helps you improve when you fight in the ring as opposed to just training.

dmar5143 wrote:

powerpuncher wrote:i dont mind the fight because wilder has been fighting such low class fighters that you cant just throw him in there with a top 10 HW. he has been fighting top 500 HW caliber fighters. he is just so raw. thats why they are moving him so slowly. he isnt ready for real competition. at least audley has been in there with some legit competition although he is a joke after the fiasco with the haye fight.

hopefully he doesnt have too much trouble with audley though.

...heres my problem with that resoning.ill agree maybe wilder isn't ready just yet for a top ten but lets not say hes raw.the heavy division is loaded with so call raw fighters then.how many of them realy have world class deep experience.hes not ready for real completion.what real completion is there .guys like wach charr... helinus is ajoke etc etc.if that's seasoned real competion then wilder will continue to fight stiffs and wella some comish will rank him as a mandatory.against another stiff and that's his big step up.yes guys like price fury michell are raw also.very raw.i don't see wilder against any of thoses either.

i just think that wilder is nowhere near ready for anyone remotely good. i can agree on your point that maybe he can make fights exciting enough that even if he loses, he can still get good fights, but i think that wilder would have lost multiple times already if he would have moved up any faster. he just doesnt impress me. he shouldnt really get talked about because he isnt any good at the moment. for example, there are thousands of fighters in the world today that are getting moved very slowly through their careers, but nobody hears about them so nobody cares. people only think that wilder is getting moved up too slowly because media actually mentions his name.

for example, nobody was seriously calling for butterbean to fight a real HW contender. do you know why? because he was a joke and would obviously lose. to a lesser extent, i think that it would be kind of a joke to have thrown wilder in there with a top HW a year or two ago because he would have just gotten beat easily. now, i believe that they probably should have given him a better resume than he has to get better experience, but he was and is still not ready to fight any top HW even though the division is terrible because wilder is not good.

I agree Wilder is very raw and definitely lacks skills in some areas, but his power intrigues me. Im convinced that the guys right hand could bring down an apartment building. Every time ive seen him land it clean with a power shot the other guy has hit the canvas. hes very big and very strong, speed isnt bad either. just needs to fight more often even if against bums, if hes fighting 6 times a year hes going to improve on those little things instinctively and grow as a fighter. right now i think he could beat some of the top 10 heavys on size and power alone. the klits would murder him, but a guy like adamek, as good as he is would just be overwhelmed by the height and reach advantage