There is no doubting the withering punching power reigning WBC heavyweight king Deontay Wilder possesses. With an amazing 39 KO’s from his 40 pro wins, it’s more than obvious Wilder can crack and crack hard. And though some critics take it upon themselves to, well, criticise Wilder for the quality of opposition he has left in a heap on the canvas, it still takes something to be able to take out 39 men and not lose a single fight along the way.
A story going around the net right now is one telling of how Wilder hits so hard he has sent no less than three of his team members to the hospital with one injury or another after working with them in training; hitting the pads and so forth. Jay Deas, Wilder’s co-trainer, told UK tabloid The Sun about the time he hit him so hard in the side that he had to undergo hernia surgery.
“I’ve had hernia surgery where he hit me just under the body protector, on my side,” Deas revealed. “I noticed it hurt but I just kept working away. But it kept hurting and hurting and hurting. So I finally went to the doctor and he said ‘you need hernia surgery.’ I was like what! He also separated Mark Breland’s shoulder when Mark was doing the mitts and he dislocated coach Cuz’s thumb. We are the only team who have three mitt men.”
It’s a good tale, no doubt true, and again, we all know how hard Wilder can punch. But will Tyson Fury be trembling in his boots when he reads this story? A student of the game, Tyson may well know about the other long list of fighters who hurt a sparring partner or a member of their team during training. How about “Big” George Foreman, who would routinely lift little Dick Saddler clean off the floor as Saddler held onto the heavy back as the young Foreman almost broke it in half? As for Sonny Liston, the quintessential bad man had to have THREE sparring partners during each session so as to get any kind of decent exercise. And yes, a good deal of these men would be willing to tell you all about the injuries they picked up as a result of working with Sonny.
Gerald McClellan, one of the single hardest-punching middleweights in history, once smashed out a number of Stan Johnson’s teeth, McClellan’s assistant coach later claiming the fighter, a mean man at times, “did it on purpose.” Mike Tyson also hurt sparring partners on a regular basis..and the list goes on.
Still, Wilder might be in a category all by himself when it comes to today’s lethal heavyweight punchers. One does wonder what injuries Fury might suffer when he and Wilder collide on December 1st.
