in 45 fights, who is the 2nd best opponent wilder beat?

[margaret thatcher]

stiverne or breazeale?

or other (say who)

to help settle an argument

[stujones]

Ortiz

[margaret thatcher]

ortiz is the 2nd best? not the best?

[Boxerbeetle]

Tough one, I’ve gone for Stiverne as he was in pretty good form before their first bout. Less said about the rematch, the better! Still sore I didn’t put my mortgage on a Wilder ko after seeing the state of Bermane at the weigh-in.

[stujones]

Sorry misread....umm I'll say Stiverne

[maverick23]

Stiverne

[banjo]

Audley

[DrDuke]

Stiverne is definitely better than Breazeale.

Stiverne's best wins were when he schooled motivated Arreola.

Breazeale's one was when he went life-and-death against Amir Mansour and won on the opponent's injury.

Stiverne has fundamentals and he was quite fast in prime.

[fizzjambo]

Has to be BS, his two wins over CA are the only wins either man has over any opponent who is arguably above C level.

Wilder’s career will, to this point at least, and most likely beyond that, be judged on flooring Fury four times so at least proving that he has legitimate top level punch power, his two wins against Ortiz and his first win against BS. His other notable wins are C level at best. He doesn’t really have an elite level win.

What elevates Fury at this point for me is that his top three wins far eclipse his contemporaries, and all were away from home to boot. It’s arguable that the next best win any other active heavy has is AU beating AJ.

[gerryd77]

It’s arguable that the next best win any other active heavy has is AU beating AJ.

Ruiz has the same. Was a bigger upset, against an undefeated, did it first and by KO.

[Cyclops]

The Stiverne win impressed me at the time. I thought Wilder was awful: all over the place and a nice shiny KO record over a bunch of terrible opponents. Then he goes and beats Stiverne on points. It's easy to write off Stiverne now because he comes with no ambition and is just a punchbag, really. But at the time he was a solid heavyweight and I thought beating him on points showed that Deontay had more than just a punch and wasn't the joke I thought he was.

[Shirow]

I always thought that Stiverne owes Arreola big time. He looked very good beating Arreola twice but never any other time that I have seen and that gave him 2 Wilder paydays. I hadn't see many of his fights before then, can anyone tell me any other impressive performances from him?

[margaret thatcher]

he was mostly gash in his other best win, vs 41 year old ray austin. was getting outboxed handily before getting the ko in the 10th

made austin look like larry holmes

[jamesmcdonnell]

Wilder was always gash, but blessed with phenomenal power which enabled him to pull wins out of the bag when he was losing by miles.

[coghaugen11]

Stiverne looked like a pudding.

[coghaugen11]

A punch bag.

Sad times this era.

[coghaugen11]

Audley

To be fair there’s an argument. He had more talent and technique than the others at least. Significantly even.

[stujones]

Audley

To be fair there’s an argument. He had more talent and technique than the others at least. Significantly even.

Sad as it sounds - but not just in terms of technique, even on professional achievement I would say Audley is top 5.

Ortiz, Stiverne, Breazele (mainly cos he took punches from Joshua), Arreola and Harrison I would call it. Liakhovich was way too shot at the time of their fight. Maybe Washington based on his Austin victory.