So compared to past U.S. heavyweights... Wilder's not very popular in the U.S. Why?

[smashup]

The Klitschko brothers killed Heavyweight boxing in the US for home grown fighters and the public/promoters lost all interest.
Simple

[Fenster]

I don't buy the location thing, Wilder has fought three of his last 4 fights in New York and won his "world" title in Vegas. He's been promoted by Golden Boy, connected to King and in recent years Al Haymon (all huge outfits). He gets the highest non-PPV TV ratings in the States.

More likely the American public/media have never bought into him because he's never been seen as the genuine worlds best like Tyson and Holyfield and Bowe (to a lesser extent were).

1. Wilder has existed in first the Wlad era and now the AJ one.

2. Tyson and Holyfield blitzed to "world" champion in under two years as a pro, Wilder took 7 years and 30+ fights to pick up a trinket.

Imagine if he'd dethroned Klitschko a few years into his career, he'd have become massive, now he needs to dethrone Joshua. However, as his TV rating prove, he's not half the no-name made out, just in a totally different climate to the past.

[Spicoli]

I don't buy the location thing, Wilder has fought three of his last 4 fights in New York and won his "world" title in Vegas. He's been promoted by Golden Boy, connected to King and in recent years Al Haymon (all huge outfits). He gets the highest non-PPV TV ratings in the States.

More likely the American public/media have never bought into him because he's never been seen as the genuine worlds best like Tyson and Holyfield and Bowe (to a lesser extent were).

1. Wilder has existed in first the Wlad era and now the AJ one.

2. Tyson and Holyfield blitzed to "world" champion in under two years as a pro, Wilder took 7 years and 30+ fights to pick up a trinket.

Imagine if he'd dethroned Klitschko a few years into his career, he'd have become massive, now he needs to dethrone Joshua. However, as his TV rating prove, he's not half the no-name made out, just in a totally different climate to the past.

True enough but it's the entire package and previous lack of 'big' stage. Those early GBP cards were basically in the dark. Also doesn't help that 2 of his last 4 were against late replacement opponents. Truth is fans remember the glory and you just cannot really duplicate the previous eras depth, what they did with Wilder instead of barging into the house and trying for an older scalp for name-exposure purposes or roll the dice early in career with a Wlad (not like Wlad should of or needed to then) they kept Wilder low key and comfortable. Almost like a career cold start now that he has been nearly lapped by AJ in the heavyweight-fan picture and his closest shot at connection to Wlad now is beating the unretired guy who already beat him. And not fighting ,yet, AJ who also knocked the stuffing out of Wlad. Wilder and people didn't really put in the work. Skill or promotion wise imo.

[El Kabong]

The Klitschko brothers killed Heavyweight boxing in the US for home grown fighters and the public/promoters lost all interest.
Simple

No the United States not developing quality heavyweight fighters since Holyfield and Tyson was the problem....our amateur boxing program is a shambles!

We had DECENT heavyweights, but they never were consistent.



Both Wlad and Vitali were top tier amateurs before the dominated the division. Deontay Wilder won bronze and he's the best American heavyweight right now....gee I wonder if that's a coincidence.



Blaming the Klitschko's for killing boxing in the US is complete bullshit. Heavyweight boxing in the US was on it's knees before the Klitschko's even turned pro. Chird Byrd as the top heavyweight from the US, John Ruiz? Lamon Brewster could have been better, but again he struggled with injuries and wasn't consistent. Shannon Briggs? Who else has there been with any promise? Seth Mitchell? NOT a great amateur, John Banks? Too small. Calvin Brock? Got injured and retired.


In order to be competitive in the pros you've got to produce quality amateur talent....look at AJ.

[Memphis]

He's in a great fight now but it's been a long time coming. He's fought way way too many taxi drivers. His power is overrated. He can clump of course he can, but he's not icing anyone decent and the ones he is, are being iced in better fashion by others. His punches are wild, he bundles people over half the time, there's no finesse in anything he does. Some people see him as having other Worldly power, I just don't buy it. His mouth is just as wild, some of the things he says are just horrendous and you can see it on him when he talks, he doesn't believe it half the time and knows he's talking utter shite.

Sometimes of course it just doesn't work out for a guy. I remember yonks back there was a piece in one of the boxing mags about Robin Reid and why he wasn't a huge huge cross over star. He apparently had all the components. Pedigree, good looking bastard, great Grim Reaper moniker, decent talker. Now I'm sure Robin Reid on the whole is happy with what he got from boxing but he was never really the superstar that his parts suggested he'd be. It just didn't work out quite as expected. As far as I can remember Robin Reid never bragged about wanting to kill someone either so....

[El Kabong]

He's in a great fight now

Let's see how the fight goes....good matchup, good records, but exciting fun fight? I don't think it'll be that way. I think it'll be ugly and the talk will be better than the in ring results and that's saying something.

[Memphis]

I'm not expecting a Foreman Lyle shoot out. Lets repackage it as a fight of great significance

[El Kabong]

I'm not expecting a Foreman Lyle shoot out. Lets repackage it as a fight of great significance

100% Agreed, it means a lot....I think it'll be one of those chess match fights, but we'll see who knows, maybe we will get Foreman vs Lyle, but what we know for certain is it's a meaningful heavyweight fight and those are rare. Meaningful fights in general for boxing are rare and this is one of those where it's happening in the prime for both fighters, both undefeated, they have everything to fight for and everything to lose.


Focusing on the fight itself rather than the aura surrounding it....I think Wilder only has 1 way to fight which is to swing for the fences. I think Fury is a slick boxer, he's a lot slicker than I initially gave him credit for. I don't believe Wilder allows Fury to fight a negative style fight the way he did vs Wlad and to be quite honest I don't think Fury's ego is stable enough to accept criticism of fighting another negative style fight. I think Fury will try the mind games with Wilder and hell maybe it'll work, but Wilder isn't a fighter that's in his own head all that much, he's more of a guy with heart and instinct so I think mentally, emotionally, psychologically Wilder and Fury are mirror images of each other but 1 is all power and the other is about just boxing.


It'll be interesting to see what happens...it would be better if we knew more about how Fury was doing in training and so on, there's obviously troubles under the surface (else he wouldn't have take the time off...and of course there's the PEDs question) but you wonder how deep those go.

[mikeeod]

There are a couple of reasons, in my opinion. First, and most painful for me to admit, is that boxing is no longer a major U.S. sport. At one point kids who were poor dreamed of becoming Ali, Louis, Dempsey, Holyfield...etc. U.S. heavyweight champs transcended the sport and used the platform to make political statements that had global impacts. Unfortunately, the media took on the mission of ending the violent sport of boxing in the 80s and eventually achieved their goal (in the U.S., thankfully it is a global sport so it remains popular everywhere else).

The second reason is that Wilder, like Ward, just doesn’t have that “it” factor necessary to pull in casual fans. Floyd is an ATG fighter, without a doubt, but his biggest fights were not a result of people wanting to watch him fight for his skills, it was because he was so damn good at eliciting emotions and creating spectacles. The only way a heavyweight reaches the levels of previous decades is if he is extremely charismatic.