ESPN’s Dan Rafael joined Monday’s The Doc and Galdi Show on the Team 980/95.9 FM following Tyson Fury’s upset victory over previously unbeaten Deontay Wilder.
Were you surprised at the one-sided nature of Wider-Fury II on Saturday night?
Absolutely! I think everybody was. I think anybody that supported Deontay Wilder and the belief that he would win or Tyson Fury, believing he would win, I don’t think anyone thought that it was going to be completely one-sided in either direction. So the fact that it was downhome butt-kicking was kind of a surprise.
The easy hot take now, and I’m sure you’ve come across it, is Deontay Wilder was overrated.
Complete nonsense. And I actually hate that. I am aggravated when I hear people say that. I almost cursed on radio. Those people are idiots. Whoever has that hot take just have no clue. Like you said Deontay Wilder was 42-0-1 with a draw against Tyson Fury, with all of his victories by knockout except for the draw and the fight where he won the world title in the first place in 2015. This is a man who is an Olympic medal winner, a bronze-medalist, with a very limited amateur background I might add. I’ll be the first to admit that for the first two dozen fights of his career, he fought a collection of nobody’s. Part of the reason for that was because he was extremely inexperienced as an amateur. But then Wilder won the title against Bermane Stiverne, who was a very quality heavyweight at that time, certainly a top-10 heavyweight. He had never been the distance going into that fight, so people kind of wanted to see him go the distance. He went 12 rounds. He won handily and got the title. He met Bermane Stiverne in a rematch that was mandated, and instead of going 12 rounds with the guy, he annihilated him in the first round in one of the sickest knockouts you’ll see, left him laying against the ropes unconscious basically. He has scored some of the biggest knockouts I have ever seen against pretty good fighters. He splattered Artur Szpilka, who was a good contender at that time. That was maybe the one knockout I thought the opponent had been deceased because of a knockout. For the people that want to say Deontay didn’t fight anybody, I don’t accept that. He fought Luis Ortiz, who is the “Boogey-man” of the heavyweight division, an undefeated Cuban southpaw with massive punching power, the kind of style that nobody wants to face and nobody still wants to face even though the guy is like in his 40s at this point. Deontay Wilder accepted his challenge in a non-mandatory fight because he wanted to prove to the people, to the fans, to the boxing folks, to the media that he was willing to fight the best fighters. He has two knockouts against the guy that nobody else wants to fight except for Deontay Wilder.
As agreed upon in the contract they both signed, Wilder has 30 days from the fight to agree to a rematch, which would set up their trilogy.
Dan Rafael on Doc and Galdi: ‘Complete Nonsense’ to call Deontay Wilder overrated was originally published on theteam980.com
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