Opinion: Wilder Impresses in Tough Test; Breazeale, Not so Much

If he had stuck with football, maybe Deontay Wilder, a 6-foot-7, 228¾-pound physical specimen who at 29 still has the look of a four- or five-star defensive end prospect, would never have blossomed into a Pro Bowler like, say, an Ed “Too Tall” Jones or Mark Gastineau. At this point, any such speculation would be impossible to prove or disprove.

But one thing we know for certain: Jones and Gastineau, both of whom tried their hand at professional boxing, were far better at sacking quarterbacks than at establishing any real bona fides in the heavyweight division.

Because he went to work to support his daughter Naieya, who was born with spina bifida, Tuscaloosa, Ala., native Wilder never got a chance to live his dream of suiting up and starring for his hometown team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. But Wilder, who came to boxing late, is the WBC heavyweight champion and he continued his progression with an 11th-round stoppage of a very tough but outclassed Frenchman, Johann Duhaupas, in Saturday night’s Premier Boxing Champions on NBC telecast from Birmingham, Ala.

Despite fighting most of the way with a badly swollen left eye, Wilder (35-0, 34 KOs) dominated and eventually wore down Duhaupas (32-3, 20 KOs), a 12-to-1 underdog who in his first ring appearance in America demonstrated that he was indeed a more legitimate contender than many in the U.S. had imagined. Although dazed and bloody, Duhaupas was still on his feet when referee Jack Reiss stepped in to save him from additional punishment. At the time of the stoppage, Wilder had landed 326 of 587 punches (56 percent) to just 98 of 332 (32 percent) for Duhaupas.

“He did everything we expected him to do,” Wilder said of the gallant but outclassed Duhaupas. “We knew he was tough. That’s why I tell people, you can’t criticize nobody you don’t know. The scariest people are the ones you don’t know of.”

Put to the kind of test he’d never previously endured, Wilder came away from his second title defense having gained more respect as a quality heavyweight than he’d amassed from all those early-round blowouts of second- and third-tier opponents.

“Each and every fight, I prove a little bit more about what people don’t know about me,” Wilder said after Duhaupas had demonstrated that he was no light soufflé to be consumed quickly and effortlessly. “Of course I can take a punch. Of course I can box. I can fight on the inside, too. A lot of people don’t know that.”

It just might be that a still-evolving Wilder could pose more of a threat to Wladimir Klitschko, who holds every other heavyweight title save for the Alabaman’s green WBC belt, than is generally believed.

“Hopefully, we can do it before the end of next year,” Wilder said of a possible unification showdown with Klitschko. “The key is to stay patient. It’s a process. That fight surely has to come around as long as I keep winning, which I will. Soon we’ll have our undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, which is me, baby.”

Although Wilder-Duhaupas was an unexpectedly competitive and entertaining return for heavyweight championship boxing on free, over-the-air television after an absence of 30 years, the lead-in to the main event was not exactly a tough act to follow. Former University of Northern Colorado quarterback Dominic Breazeale (16-0, 14 KOs) remained undefeated with a 10-round, unanimous decision over veteran Fred Kassi (18-4-1, 10 KOs), but the passer-turned-puncher’s performance left a lot to be desired, despite the excessively generous margins of victory accorded him on the official scorecards (97-93, 98-92 and an obscene 100-90).

“What were they looking at? What fight did they see?” color analyst Sugar Ray Leonard, who saw the fight as a 95-95 draw, said of the judges’ collective myopia.

“It’s probably the most frustrated I’ve ever been in a fight,” said Breazeale, who at 6-7 and 258¼ pounds looks to be more former defensive end than a former quarterback. “When you can’t figure a guy out by the third and fourth rounds, you just start shooting shots and looking for things to land.

“But I’m still a young guy in this game. Little by little, every fight I take something from it. This one, I’m going to take a lot from it. I’m glad I was able to be a part of it.”

Breazeale, 30, is the last, best hope to demonstrate that the vision of the late Michael King, who imagined that a new era of dominant American heavyweights could be culled from the ranks of physically imposing football and basketball players who failed to latch on with teams in the NFL and NBA. King, who made his fortune with King World Productions’ “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!,” was an avid boxing fan who launched All-American Heavyweights in 2007 in the same manner that the late owner of the Kansas City Royals, Ewing Kauffman, founded the Royals Baseball Academy in 1970 in the hope of transforming non-baseball players with exceptional hand-eye coordination into Major League All-Stars.

Kauffman’s grand experiment was unsuccessful for the most part, but at least it produced second baseman Frank White, who played 18 seasons in the bigs, won eight Gold Gloves, made five All-Star teams and appeared in two World Series, winning one. It is a stretch at this point to suggest that Breazeale, who was the United States’ representative in the super heavyweight division in the 2012 London Olympics, can ever become to King’s legacy – King was 67 when he passed away on May 27, of complications from pneumonia -- what White was to Kauffman’s.

Against a clever journeyman like the 36-year-old Kassi, Breazeale at times looked hesitant and befuddled. He unquestionably is big and strong, but his mobility is limited, he comes straight ahead and his understanding of boxing’s subtle nuances, like the usefulness of varying his attack and fighting at angles, remains shaky. If Saturday’s telecast was designed to forward his candidacy as the next-best American heavyweight after Wilder, give him a grade of C-minus. There is much work to be done if he is to evolve into a legitimate contender.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.