The Official Boxing Thread

NAAZIM RICHARDSON WARNS ANTHONY JOSHUA THE LONGER HE WAITS, THE MORE TROUBLE HE'LL HAVE WITH DEONTAY WILDER; EXPLAINS WHY

NAAZIM RICHARDSON ON JOSHUA VS. WILDER:

Them wide shots that Deontay can throw, Joshua could loop down the middle of those things right now. But you give Wilder a little more time and keep that cake in the oven a little more, these ? are in trouble. It goes back to the microwave era I tell you about all the time. Put that thing in a slow-cooker, let it simmer all night, and the food tastes different altogether. The same goes for a fighter. Don’t rush it; let it simmer, let that developmental process happen, and watch out. Don’t get it twisted though, Deontay Wilder fights anybody right now and they got problems. You wait a little while longer, when he starts correcting some of his mistakes and he starts to understand all of his gifts, these jokers going to really have a problem. And the beauty of it is, it’s all correctable problems. [Mark] Breland already working on it. The first time he fought Stiverne, Stiverne kept his hands high. He did something smart by making his offense his defense. He banged on Stiverne’s arms and made Stiverne scared to open his arms up. So Stiverne just stayed in a shell all day. He put cover fire on him where he couldn’t come up because there were just bullets flying. In the rematch, think about this, Wilder knocked a man unconscious who had his hands up the whole time. This man never dropped his hands and got hit with a shot. He went under the guard, he went around the guard, between the guard, and the guy never recovered from the first shot between the guard. And he’s getting the confidence now. He’s starting to believe. He damn near slung the referee out of the damn ring; big strong ? (laughing). I actually think that Stiverne thought that weight was going to hold him up a little bit. Joshua has to be really careful he doesn’t do the same thing. He’s been coming in a little over as well.

Joshua is a better fighter. There’s no argument there, but that ? don’t mean nothing. Listen, 60% of the fighters Wilder has fought is a better fighter than him. He doesn’t have the experience. He really should be at the National’s level. Deontay has the same experience as this kid we have in the gym that went to National’s this year. The excitement he carries…and that’s what he’s fighting on, that young excitement. He’s just happy to be here and he’s going to whoop anybody’s ass that gets in front of him. They talked all that ? about, “He went to camp with Klitschko or David Haye and they showed a tape where they buckled him.” First of all, at that time, what the hell was that kid doing in the ring with a guy like David Haye? He was so damn young and inexperienced, who put that kid in there? I would be afraid that kid would go wild and cut my guy. What was he doing in there? That showed you that those guys already had him on the radar. And then they showed David Haye cracked him, but then when they showed the whole tape, they showed him jump back on David Haye's ass and he cracked David Haye too.

Deontay told me once, “Naazim, I ain’t never been afraid of a guy since I was a kid. I got that Bama strength and everybody that I’ve ever hit with this right hand responded. They blink, they shake their head, they backed up, they went down, they went to sleep, but nobody just ignored it like they weren’t hit.” And he said, “I know now, in 12 rounds, I’m going to hit you with it.” I told my son, “This kid going to be heavyweight champion.” He asked me what made me think that. I said, “The most impressive thing he said to me was that in 12 rounds, he knows he’s going to hit you. The biggest problem you would have with a guy like him is if he starts missing a lot, he may get antsy and make a mistake. Now he’s showing me that he’s going to stay patient.” See, he proved it to be when he fought Szpilka. Szpilka’s style is so awkward. And Szpilka surprised me that he could move like that for so long. Going into the second half of the fight, Szpilka was still throwing some crazy ? at Deontay and I said, “An experienced guy could have problems; an inexperienced guy like Deontay could fall apart.” Deontay kept that thing together, man, and as soon as Szpilka was like that rabbit with nowhere to go, Deontay was like that hunter sitting up in that tree. He blew the back of his ? brains out. This kid is for real and it’s about time people start to treat him like he is.

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