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Was Deontay Wilder's Legacy on the Line?

 If you didn't read yesterday's post about Mackenzie Dern and Marina Rodriguez, then you missed that I said my gap in posts was due to midterms and then I took this past weekend to recover, but I will be back to posting regularly now. I know this fight was a few weekends ago and I also said that I wouldn't likely be commenting on it but here we are. I'm not here to talk down on Deontay Wilder as some have done and if you are someone who reads my posts, you know I am not a fight analyst type. I have been open in saying that I don't like boxing as much as MMA nor do I know as much about the sport itself or the fighters. However, what I wanted to comment on was largely a talking point of the broadcast in the lead up to the fight. At least for the American broadcast, they kept mentioning that this fight had a lot to say about Deontay Wilder's legacy and that if he were to lose then they seemed to imply that we would only remember Wilder as the guy who lost to Tyson Fury and not for everything else he accomplished, which just seemed really odd to me. I'm not even a huge boxing fan and I feel like I had a pretty good grasp on what Wilder's legacy was and was not.

I don't think any who knows even a little bit about the sport would have considered Wilder a great "boxer". We all knew Wilder lived and died with his massive power and his ability to knock his opponents out with a single shot. He isn't the first guy, especially heavyweight, to fight like this and he won't be the last. The only problem is, he ran into the best heavyweight boxer in the world and probably the best heavyweight boxer of at least my lifetime (I'm in my 20s so that's not a huge time span). Deontay Wilder has beaten everyone he's ever fought that wasn't Tyson Fury, I don't think losing to one fighter (twice, with one draw) ruins someone's legacy. Yea, sure, Wilder isn't the heavyweight GOAT or even the GOAT of his generation, but does that really just diminish everything he's ever done? I don't think being the second best of his generation is really all that bad of a spot to be. Obviously he was on a quest to be crowned the best, but I don't think being number 2 is anything to hang your head about or for the broadcast to suggest that his legacy hinged on the outcome of this fight seemed far fetched. 

Would I have preferred for him to be more respectful to Fury in the immediate aftermath of the fight? Yes, of course, but does that drastically change my opinion of him? Not really. Deontay Wilder's legacy was already largely cemented to me before he ever even made the walk to the ring. Deontay Wilder is a man who started fighting to support his family when they needed him the most. He parlayed something he did as a necessity into more money than most of us will ever see in our entire lives. He took that necessity and went all the way to the pinnacle of the sport and fought the best heavyweight of his generation 3 times. In 2 of those fights, he had the champion hurt badly with shots that would have ended the fight against anyone else in the division. He wasn't perfect and I would be lying if I said that the excuses about the costume won't come to mind when I think of him, but Deontay Wilder's legacy is much more good than bad. If you think losing to Fury makes Wilder a fraud, then I don't really even know what to tell you because you were probably just searching for any way to diminish him anyways. I don't really even consider myself a Wilder fan, it just seems pretty clear to me what his legacy is and will be. He's great even with his flaws and he gave us the best boxing trilogy we've seen in quite awhile. 

As for me, I'll remember Deontay Wilder for the crazy knockouts and for his rags to riches story to support his daughter. I'll remember the crazy first and third fights against Fury where they went back and forth and both guys had chances to win. I'll laugh with my friends and siblings about the weird costume for the second Fury fight and the excuses. Overall, with the ups and downs and good and bad, Deontay Wilder will always bring up positive memories for me and that's what his legacy is. It never had anything to do with whether he won or lost against Fury. That would have only been icing on the cake for him. If this is it for him in the ring, I wish him the best and hope that he can enjoy whatever his life has in store for him the rest of the way. Despite the way it ended, if this is the end for him, I hope that he is at peace and can look back on everything in a positive light given the reason he ever started boxing in the first place. Good luck Deontay, your legacy was always safe in my book.

What do you guys think? Did you notice those comments during the broadcast? Do you think his legacy was diminished or tarnished by the loss? What do you think his legacy is? Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading. 

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