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Philippines, 06 Feb 2025 |
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Can Deontay Wilder Be Great? (Part II) By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Thu, 07 Feb 2019  The year was 1992 when a young unknown heavyweight who had won the Olympic gold back in 1988 by the name of Lennox Lewis was matched up against a fearsome fighter by the name of Donovan ?Razor? Ruddock. Every true boxing fan knew who Ruddock was. A year earlier he fought a prime Mike Tyson twice and lost both times. The first fight was controversial as many felt the referee awarded Tyson an early stoppage in the 7th round and the second a 12 round unanimous decision loss. With Tyson incarcerated for a rape conviction and Evander Holyfield reining as heavyweight champion, many thought Ruddock would ascend to the Heavyweight title. Perhaps boxing fans would get a rubbermatch (3rd fight) between Tyson-Ruddock after Tyson completed his prison term if Ruddock was Heavyweight champion. The Lewis-Ruddock bout started quick. Both fighters took chances and threw bombs at one another. In the end it was Lewis?s bombs (punches) that found the target (Ruddock?s chin) which resulted in a devastating and impressive knockout for Lewis. There was suddenly a ?buzz? about Lewis in the boxing world. Lewis was athletic, raw, and had punching power. In his next fight against former IBF heavyweight champion Tony Tucker, Lewis struggled and look bad, but managed to win a close decision victory. In his next two fights he knocked out both Frank Bruno and Phil Jackson but looked amateurish and had plenty of flaws. When he faced Oliver McCall who was trained by the late great Emmanuel Steward, he had McCall capitalize on Lewis?s mistakes and scored a surprising knockdown. The referee deemed Lewis (whose eyes were glassy and legs wobbly) unable to continue and Lewis suffered his first loss. Those of us who follow boxing know what happened next. Emmanuel Steward was then hired by Lewis and he fired his former trainer, Pepe Correa. Emmanuel Stewart corrected Lewis?s flaws and turned him into a completely great fighter. Lewis would regain his title in a rematch with McCall and he would dominate the heavyweight division for 9 years. Lennox Lewis will go down as one of the 10 best heavyweights ever, as far as this writer is concerned. WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder (41-0-1, 39KOs) in a lot of ways reminds this writer of Lennox Lewis. Wilder is talented, athletic, and tall like Lewis. The difference here is Wilder has awesome punching power and has easily turned fights in his favor when he is behind on scorecards. In his fight against former WBA heavyweight champion Luis Ortiz of Cuba, Wilder almost lost by stoppage, but his punching power made the difference as he came back to stop Ortiz in the 10th round in spectacular fashion. In his last fight against Tyson Fury he was totally outboxed for 11 rounds. Wilder again relied on his awesome punching power to knockdown Fury in the 12th round almost stopping him for good. Remarkably Fury was able to beat the count to finish the fight and Wilder was able to get a Draw against Fury. Fury and Wilder are set to face again in a rematch in May of this year. Wilder will have to bring his ?A Game? and minimize his flaws if he is to defeat a fellow undefeated former world Heavyweight champion, Tyson Fury. Listen up Wilder Camp: This Advice Is Free. It appears much like Pepe Correa had brought Lennox Lewis as far as he could go when he fought Razor Ruddock, Wilder?s current trainers have brought him as far as they can bring him. This writer takes nothing away from them in terms of credit. They have done a wonderful job. Under their tutelage Wilder has become a World Champion and has managed to stay undefeated. Can Deontay Wilder be great? Wilder Absolutely has the potential to be great. He has been blessed with all the physical tools and he has a lot of heart and he clearly believes in himself. If Wilder is to be mentioned in the same conversation of great heavyweight champions such as Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Klitschko brothers, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Tim Witherspoon, etc. he will likely have to make a change to a different trainer(s) the way Lennox Lewis hired the best trainers in boxing at the time, Emanuel Steward, to correct his flaws so he could go to the next level, which was Greatness. Boxing Notes: Congratulations to Kovalev for defeating Elider Alvarez and regaining is WBO Lightheavyweight title. Many thought Kovalev was finished after his shocking KO loss to Alvarez. This writer never thought that for one minute! Congratulations again to Kovalev who ignored people?s advice to retire, believed in himself, and is now champion again. Very happy for Kathy Duva of Main Events. The 175lbs division is totally dominated by Russian fighters. Wonder who will end up being Undisputed champion?Don?t judge a book by its cover! Adam Knownacki may not win a body building contest, but this guy can fight. He destroyed chiseled well defined muscular Gerald Washington in 2 impressive rounds a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully other heavyweight fighters will continue underestimating him?Glad to see Pacquiao is on top again where he belongs after two impressive victories. Hopefully he will get the fights he desires before he retires?Tyson Fury gets his rematch after a controversial draw against WBC Heavyweight Champion in May of this year. He is going to have to be even better this next time if he is to defeat Wilder. He may not get up next time if Wilder knocks him down again. Contact Writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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