In this video interview with respected trainer Naazim Richardson, he discusses his thoughts on Deontay Wilder taking on fighters who are more technically sound than him. Check out some excerpts below of what Richardson had to say...
“Tyson Fury got mad at me when I said this but I say it again: Tyson Fury is a big man. He’s a very big man. Now, my young boy Deontay — I’ll be real with you — there’s farm animals he can knock the fuck out...Deontay hit anything solid with a pulse and a lung, they gon’ wiggle!
“And what I’m saying by that...you can go down to that Philadelphia zoo and lean over the cage and let Deontay get a clean shot — some of them mothafuckas is going!...I ain’t saying he’s the best fighter. I ain’t saying he’s the quicker, I ain’t saying he’s the slickest...I said something that everybody got on me [about] but I don’t care. I said he might be the best punching heavyweight, maybe in history.
“‘Oh you crazy!’ They say Joe Louis — Joe Louis was a better fighter. ‘Mike Tyson!’ — Mike Tyson’s mechanics, was a better fighter. George Foreman was better to the jab-right hand. Deontay is winning with that heat! He ain’t outslick nobody...
“You seen him hold on when he got cracked by [Luis] Ortiz — he might be the most technically sound heavyweight up there...we don’t really know how old this guy is, man. That guy might be 60 years old for all we know. But shit, he put up a good account of himself.
“But Deontay, they say, well, ‘Joshua!’ And I like Joshua. They say ‘Naazim, Deontay’s your buddy, Joshua’s a better fighter.’ I said ‘Yeah, probably so.’ I said ‘But guess what else?...maybe everybody else that Deontay knocked out might be better than him mechanically.’
“See, what you see in Deontay is that he can knock out men that are better fighters than him. That changes the game! So, like I say, Deontay Wilder got a chance in every fight.”
Richardson on who he would favor in a fight between Wilder and Joshua:
“Here’s my thing. I saw ‘King Kong’, who punches like hell, hit Deontay. I seen Deontay never leave his feet. I saw Klitschko hit Joshua, seen him leave his feet. I ain’t never seen Deontay lose his heart, it’s ticking with anybody in there. So I think Joshua’s mechanics are nice...Joshua got that lil’ chess game going. But there’s some chess players that when you put them on speed chess, they ain’t the same chess player.”