A big weekend of combat sports presents a few questions for us here at Undercard Superstar. In the UFC, UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw has looked like a world beater in his title reign, but have people not been giving credit to the former champion who never truly lost his title in Dominick Cruz? In boxing, does David Haye have what it takes to stay afloat in a new heavyweight division that could possibly be done with the Klitschkos? Also, will Deontay Wilder be the king of that division soon?
The bar is open.
Are people underestimating Dominick Cruz challenging TJ Dillashaw for the UFC Bantamweight Championship?
Nolan Howell: There are many reasons to be skeptical of Cruz. With his knees on borrowed time with injury after injury, Cruz is coming off of a one and a half year hiatus after defeating Takeya Mizugaki, whom he was returning against from a three year layoff. Dillashaw sort of flipped the script with the Cruz blueprint. Where Cruz used awkward point-striking to get in close to land a knee tap takedown, Dillashaw built a striking game to compliment and prey on the fear of his ferocious wrestling. The game may have passed Cruz by at this point and especially against a well-rounded athlete the caliber of Dillashaw.
However, I’m not prepared to count Cruz out. Decision Dom was tricky and, though I still think Dillashaw will win, I think it will take him a bit of time to figure out a fighter who could have possible added many new wrinkles to his fighting style while recovering. Cruz probably hasn’t faced anyone as skilled in both realms as Dillashaw, but he has seen fighters of all styles. Dillashaw also has a slight disadvantage, considering half of his fights the past two years have been against a fighter he clearly had a number for in Renan Barao.
Dillashaw still takes this decisively enough, but Cruz makes a fight out of it and takes a round or two.
Luke Irwin: Time waits for no man, and Dominick Cruz, impressive as he was, and might still be, is no exception.
Yes, he looked great against Mizugaki, but Mizugaki’s all-or-nothing style, aggressive attacks, and subpar defense lends itself towards making someone look marvelous or foolish and even that fight was a year and a half ago. Cruz hasn’t seen what a second round looks like since October 1, 2011. Think about that for a second. That’s insane. Since then, his knees have collapsed and are currently held together with rubber cement and hope, and the bantamweight division he once lorded over has gotten infinitely more talented and deeper, along with bigger and stronger with the invention of the flyweight division that houses many hopelessly undersized foes Cruz defeated.
In Cruz’s prime, and with healthy knees, I might have called this differently, but 2016 Cruz against 2016 Dillashaw is a different story.
Does David Haye still have a shot at relevance in boxing’s heavyweight division?
Nolan: Short answer, yes. Aside from the cream of the crop at the top of the division with names like Fury, Klitschko, Wilder, and Povetkin (and even he is inconsistent), there isn’t much depth at heavyweight below that. It is filled with a lot of fighters past their primes or who never panned out, as well as prospects who are still getting their feet under them as they use raw athleticism and talent in other sports to their advantage as they feast on club fighters to make their names.
Haye has beaten pretty much everyone under the elite ceiling in the division. Despite age and injuries, Haye should be able to make a splash as he returns. Haye might not be interested in that though and just want to make a few bucks off some big fights in the UK, but that’s just fine considering all he has done to this point. Haye should be able to make some noise and maybe sneak into a title shot one last time before his time is up in the next few years.
Luke: Sure! Listen, this ain’t the 70’s heavyweight division. This isn’t even today’s welterweight division. The heavyweight division will always have a spot in even a casual fan’s heart and mind, especially in the UK and the US. Haye is 35, battling injuries, and hasn’t fought since 2012, but he’s still a top-ten heavyweight and a name even many casual fans know.
So I guess it comes down to how you define relevance. Will Haye be a world champion, especially in the rejuvenated heavyweight division? No. But can he still be marketable name, a decent draw, and a darned good fighter in the most romanticized and adored division in combat sports history? I think so. Plus, the man gave us this:
Does Deontay Wilder become the undisputed heavyweight champion eventually, should he defeat Artur Szpilka?
Nolan: First thing’s first, no doubt in my mind Wilder defeats Szpilka this Saturday. Wilder has faced some adversity against unexpected challengers like in the Molina fight, but he’s still got almost a half-decade left of his prime athletically (and perhaps more so in a strange heavyweight division). Wilder can only get better for the next few years, barring major injury or a Tyson-like collapse.
Wilder is waiting on Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschko to rematch and I favor him over the former, but perhaps not the latter. Fury can win any fight ugly, but chances are Wilder would not allow that to happen and would make Fury pay anytime he decided to get close enough to clinch. Klitschko presents a trickier problem with his risk-adverse style and could find a way to pick apart Wilder if he isn’t careful. Still, Fury has laid out a gameplan for guys who can match up to the tremendous size of Klitschko and Wilder should be able to follow that with an additional tool of punching power.
All this said, I think Wilder becomes the undisputed champion at heavyweight and can breathe a little life into a division that is now dead to American boxing viewers, especially if he is able to do it against a promotional superman like Fury or on a stage as grand as a soccer stadium in Europe against a Klitschko crowd.
Luke: Well, firstly, Wilder has all the tools you could ever want in a heavyweight boxer. If you were creating what a fantastic heavyweight boxer was in a lab, Wilder is your finished product. Huge, strong, absurd reach, astonishing power, technical amateur prowess, an Olympic medal. He has it all, but as we know about the fight game, those tools don’t mean anything if you can’t build something worthwhile with them.
Hundreds of things can go wrong with a fighter before their ideal finished product. A vast majority of those occur between the ears, but some get derailed by injuries or other misfortunes. Deontay, for the most part, hasn’t let the train slip off the tracks. I agree with Nolan’s assessment on matchups with Fury and Klitschko and how they could shake out. Wilder’s power won’t allow Fury to, well, be like Fury. A more technical boxer would pose more of a problem, but although Wilder is 30, it’s a very fresh 30 with minimal dings.
The only other factor that could derail him is the rise of a new crop of heavyweights that could take heavyweight boxing back to the highs of the 90s. Guys like Joe Parker, Anthony Joshua, Tyson’s younger brother Hughie Fury, Andy Ruiz Jr., and Adrian Granat amongst others are among the brightest group of heavyweight prospects in decades.
Regardless, as an unabashed Bomber fan of a few years now, I’ll be pulling for the guy and think he’d be absolutely fantastic for boxing.
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