Review by AllTheBestFights.com: 2016-01-16, Deontay Wilder vs Artur Szpilka gets three stars only thanks to a good finish, the rest of the fight was quite boring.The undefeated Deontay Wilder entered this fight with a perfect boxing record of 35-0-0 (34 KOs=97%) and he is ranked as the No.4 heavyweight in the world (currently the #1 in this division is Tyson Fury). He fought three times last year winning the Wbc Hw title against Bermane Stiverne (=Stiverne vs Wilder) and defending it twice, with Eric Molina (=Wilder vs Molina) and against Johann Duhaupas (=Wilder vs Duhaupas).
His opponent, Artur Szpilka, has a record of 20-1-0 (15 KOs=75%) and he entered as the No.19 in the same weight class. He suffered his only loss when he faced Bryant Jennings in 2014 (=Jennings vs Szpilka), since then he has won four fights beating Yasmany Consuegra in his last one (=Szpilka vs Consuegra). Wilder vs Szpilka is valid for the WBC World heavyweight title (Wilder’s third defense). Watch the video and rate this fight!
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Date: 2016-01-16
Where: Barclays Center, New York, USA
Division: heavyweight (over 200 lbs, 90.7 kg)
Title: WBC World heavyweight title
Wilder’s previous fight: Deontay Wilder vs Johann Duhaupas
Szpilka’s previous fight: Artur Szpilka vs Yasmany Consuegra
Wilder’s next fight: Deontay Wilder vs Chris Arreola
Szpilka’s next fight: Artur Szpilka vs Adam Kownacki
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Video: (Free embeddable video hosted on Ok.ru and not uploaded by AllTheBestFights)
Official highlights
Roids vs natty
Good fight. Thank Yo guys for fixing it.
Szpilka was game, but he had a punch with his name written on it. Wilder continues to rise :)
Wilder is good enough to keep stopping contenders, who somehow manage to cuff him all night. What will happen when he faces top level competition?
I bet wilder gets beat by Povetkin.
Yes -good fight.
I had Spilka up 5-3 at time of stoppage. (1st 3, 5, and 8th)
He got lazy and stepped right into that right hand.
Best win of Wilder’s so far.
So maybe he will move a bit more and face Ortiz? Based on Spilka being TKO’d by Jennings and Jennings getting TKO’d by Ortiz. Ortiz is still 3 inches shorter than Wilder but Wilder has 1 inch shorter arms. (which isn’t “reach” in real terms)
Again – super heavy weights fighting heavy weights.
Let’s be frank: Wilder struggled with a second-tier opponent in soulthpaw Szpilka. If not for a lucky punch, he could well lose on points. I’d still give Wilder an edge against Fury and even Klitschko in his current conditions, but I feel he can be beaten by Povetkin, Haye and Joshua.
And Wilder vs Ortiz would be an exciting matchup as well. I think Martin is too raw to pull it off.
From the technical point of view the performance of Artur was much better than Deontay’s one but proved not to be enough in front of a taller and much more powerful boxer who in top of that has the gifted southpaw stance. Deontay’s performance didn’t convice me at all and before the knock out Artur was winning the fight.
When time come I would like to see Deontay fighting Joshua who has similar physical dimensions, is as powerful as Deontay is but technically a better boxer in my opinion. I fully believe this would be really a great match.
All 3 judges had Wilder ahead
They all were completely wrong but unfortunately this is business man. Too bad
If find that somewhat weird when boxrec’s recap goes like: “Szpilka coming in to win, looking very strong as the bout began, and actually winning the first three rounds with his awkward southpaw stance, rapid foot movement, and unique talent of slipping punches. Szpilka made Wilder appear somewhat wild with his punches, as Wilder missed 175 punches thrown at Szpilka, mostly head punches.The fight was an eight round mostly defensive gem, with Szpilka moving all over the place, fighting from the outside, and not letting Wilder land much. In rounds four through eight, Wilder did eventually come ahead on the punch count slightly and begin to wear down Szpilka a little bit…”. Based on this description, one would think this was probably a tie until then. But then it goes: “Entering round nine, Szpilka, aware from the ring commentators he could not longer win the fight on the cards…”. I tend to agree with tango2042.
They are not very encyclopedic or neutral in their description..
Olivier, I like very much your colorful description of the fight, I wish I could do the same but English isn’t my mother tongue, and agree with your comment.
Szpilka was always the offensive boxer displaying a very reasonable technique and connecting the best punches of the fight till suffering the knock out. Deontay technically was very poor and as you said missing punches miserable. I would say that the knock out punch was a lucky one based on his previous performance during this fight. It seems to me that Deontay has a kind of lack of confidence in himself in spite of his excellent record, I observed this in this fights and previous ones. It could be may be that he feels that technically he needs to improve his performance and cannot be counting always in his powerful punches.
In most of the fights he got in trouble when his opponent showed some kind of technical proficiency.
I agree, Tango, about Deontay’s lack of confidence. He seems easily alarmed, in fact. He may know something we don’t know.
His tendency to backpedal hurriedly at the first sign of trouble will, I think, hurt him if he faces top competition. That’s a big if, at present.
Wilder vs David haye, bring it on
Fury would have a field day with Wilder. I didn’t find him at all impressive.
Pesos pesados es sinonimo de peleas lentas y monotonas.Pero tiene la exitacion de “ese”golpe de mucho poder.Eso sucedio esta noche,una pelea en la que el polaco.que tenia que asumir el protagonismo de las pelea,no ataco nunca,y Wylder,con muy poquito esta venciendo comodo.Hasta que llego “ese” golpe que puso al polaco a dormir mmuy profundamente.Desperdicio de buena pelea.Saludos
Great…as a preview picture you see directly the result. Well done…and the quality is really bad too.
I had Szpilka ahead by 3 rounds (+1 if I considered the 9th). I was quite surprised by both the unofficial scorecard and the compubox stats they showed at some point, ’cause from my point of view, Szpilka was doing very good work. On the other hand, Wilder started slow, clumsy as his opponent was able to get in and get out quickly by using some nice footwork and head movement. Wilder got exposed, in a way, since he looked a bit like Klitschko, that is unable to box when on the back foot. But by the 4th round, Wilder started to land a few one-two, even though in my opinion Szpilka remained more steady. The 6th, 7th and 8th rounds were very close until that counter right hand landed perfectly on Szpilka’s chin. Hope he’s fine and comeback soon, because I really liked him in this fight and I believe he could be a good matchup against many other top10ers. This fight deserve at least 3 and a half stars.
Always interesting to know:
Purses: Wilder $1.5M, Szpilka $250K; Glazkov $524K, Martin $250K
I have watched this fight three times. Wilder appears to me to be rather one dimensional, perhaps due to his height, he does not move his head and in fact moves his head forward everytime he leads. Someone with ‘passing- double jump skills will see him on the deck. I believe that his skill set is lacking somewhat as Szpilka is never a top contender. I would like to see Wilder fight Joshua, and totally agree with Tango 2042; this would make a great fight and I believe that Wilder would be found wanting.