Deontay Wilder vs Dominic Breazeale 18th May 2019 Sky Sports

[Kirkland Laing]

Certainly the pendulum is starting to swing a little bit isn't it. Used to be Wilder hadn't fought anybody. Well... he's slowly working on that isn't he. Seems Wladimir was the only entry on AJ's resume his fans needed to mention to cancel out anything Wilder had done. Who's AJ fighting next again? And who has he fought lately? Just askin' Argument was Wilder was fighting in front of 5,000 people in the backwoods of Alabama. Seems he's slowly warming up to the U.S. heavyweight fandom consciousness isn't he.
Wanna make it about number of belts? Sure..... ok. AJ has the most number of trinkets. If that's the argument.... we have nothing to talk about.

He knocked over a tomato can. Breazeale dropped his hands and basically asked to get knocked out. Wilder lost his last fight against Fury and got a gift decision. On Saturday he fought in front of what the Guardian called : the charitably announced crowd of 13,181 so that's a half full at best arena and maybe half of the people there probably got free tickets. Was the fight PPV in America? I don't think it was, was it. Wilder has a right hand that can knock anybody out but nobody over there seems to be too excited about him. When he's in against somebody who isn't a can he doesn't look so good.

America is odd with its boxing gates, not sure why that matters though. A guy like RJJ won the HW title in Vegas with a 1/2 empty Mack Center, does that matter in anyway to a fan?

Cassius Clay won a title fighting Liston to an empty house as well.

Other than Texas, California & Madison Square garden, rarely do fighters pack the house be it Bradley, Ward, former champs to name a few.

And kinda perplexed on you calling Brezealle a Tomato can was he that when he fought AJ? It seems then that the whole HW division is always overloaded with tomato cans, to which Wilder saw it as a mandatory, should he lose his belt for that?
Reminds me of when Bernard Hopkins took a lot of flack...and deserved it...for fighting a no namer Morrade Hakkar a mandatory.

Who is there for DW or AJ to fight? And if these guys are better than Brezealle I can only question who did they fight to relinquish the tomato can label that has been applied to Dominic?

Clay and Liston were both unpopular with boxing fans when they fought. RJJ managed to be unpopular with fans throughout his career. He's said quite rightly his surly attitude in front of the cameras cost him endless millions. If he'd just smiled and been polite for the cameras like SRL he could have had a different career. Guys like Tyson, Leonard and Hearns never had problems selling tickets, did they? Despite the right hand Wilder still hasn't convinced American boxing fans that he's something worth turning out for. It won't hurt if he keeps sparking people like that but his next fight could end up being another life or death twelve rounder with that superannuated Cuban.

I'm calling Breazeale a can based on the fact that facing somebody with a known weapon he couldn't even manage to keep his left hand up for three minutes. If you're going to stand in front of a bazooka right hand in a world title fight and drop your left you a. deserve everything you get and b. shouldn't be in the ring in the first place. On the night the guy did a perfect impression of a tomato can and still managed to wobble Wilder and have him hanging on with the only decent punch he threw.

I think I get your point. I was attempting to state that America overall doesn't really support boxers the way it appears Europe does. From Nigel Benn to Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe, Carl Froch, heck David Haye, Amir Khan, both Klitchkos, Anthony Joshua..when they fight their is a HUGE following for them..many come to America when they fight. But how many Americans went to Europe to support their own? I don't know. Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns fight over seas? Gatti had a following in Jersey, but nowhere else.
Floyd sells out, but that is in Vegas exclusively.

I think Roy Jones statement isn't the sole reason why he didn't pack houses. We're talking from his first few fights where he didn't have a microphone in front of him for people to judge. When Roy did speak one had to have cable to hear what you said he stated of himself.

Different with Ray. If there is anything I think I can teach/inform you is this: Ray came up on regular t.v. the network is ABC and their wild-world of sports & Howard Cossell. Then CBS sports with Brent Mussburger. NBC sports Dan Dierdorf...I think!

Ray packed the house from day one because he was accessible from t.v. not cable let alone PPV.... He IMO started this mess by choosing closed circuit when he became champ---which eventually gave way to cable/PPV in America becoming the only way to watch these guys and Americans as a whole began to resent it.


Add on basketball, baseball, American football as an alternative, then the sport fans in America can easily ignore boxing today. Especially when the face of boxing are black men who constantly talk $$ in front of the camera, do more countering than attacking as a style when they do fight..that is a turn off.

Wilder IMO has a huge following in his homestate and as of last week, A LOT of people who didnt follow the sport are talking about some tall dude that knocked out a guy with one shot in the 1st round. People are noticing Wilder.

Only boxing fanatics such as me, you & others who frequent boxing forums will break down any and everything wrong in a fighter. We'll revisit this thread when he fights again and see if I'm right that Wilder is developing a following in America after knocking out the said-tomato can!

It's true that being on subscription channels has hurt American boxers' popularity and boxing's popularity with the public but it hasn't stopped individual boxers becoming popular. Especially in Wilder's case he has no excuse for not being popular. It's an old saying that in boxing there are the heavyweights and there's everybody else. If an American heavyweight who knocks everybody out and has a world title isn't even able to half fill an arena with people who paid for their tickets then he's for whatever reason not popular. If he keeps knocking people out he may get there but right now he's several fights into a world title reign and isn't even a PPV fighter yet. It's actually quite surprising.