Chapter 561 Before the Boxing Match
After intensive training for more than ten days, on Saturday, April 26, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the WBA Heavyweight Championship Challenger Qualifying Tournament was held.
Link takes on North American heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
Deontay Wilder was born in 1985. He is 29 years old this year and won the bronze medal in heavyweight boxing at the 2008 Olympic Games.
He entered professional boxing in November 2008 and participated in 30 games.
His current professional record is 30 wins and 30 KOs in 30 fights. So far, all his games have ended in the first 4 rounds, and he is nicknamed the ‘Bronze Bomber’.
Link's current professional record is 36 fights, 36 wins, and 36 KO wins. Currently, all games end in the first 3 rounds.
Since both of them have participated in the Beijing Olympics, their professional records are all victories, and both of them won by KO.
After this match was announced at the end of last year, it quickly attracted the attention of boxing fans. Many people wanted to know who would be better after the two undefeated boxing champions met.
For this reason, the odds given by the bookmaker are that Link will win at 1.32 to 1, and Deontay Wilder will win at 1.65 to 1.
The odds between the two sides are not much different.
This is also the match with the lowest odds given by bookmakers since Link entered the professional boxing world.
The main reason is that bookmakers are not sure whether he can beat Deontay.
First of all, Link was originally a light heavyweight boxer. After being promoted to heavyweight, he has only defeated two old boxers over the age of 45.
Deontazon has defeated 30 heavyweight boxers since 2008. In April last year, he defeated Malik Scott and became the WBA North American boxing champion.
Deontay has more experience when it comes to dealing with heavyweight opponents.
The second point is that the physical data gap between the two sides is relatively large.
Link is 186 cm tall, has an arm length of 195 cm, and weighs 182 pounds. Deontay Wilder is 201 cm tall, has an arm length of 211 cm, and weighs 224 pounds.
From a physical perspective, Deonta has a huge advantage.
Some media compared this game to the 1973 match between 'Devil' George Foreman and 'Fireworks' Joe Frazier.
George Foreman is 191cm tall and 199cm long, while Joe Frazier is 182cm tall and 185cm long.
At that time, Joe Frazier had just defeated Ali and snatched the WBC-WBA heavyweight boxing championship belt from Ali. He was considered the strongest boxer in the boxing world and the boxer with the highest appearance fee. He had a career record of 29 fights. win.
George Foreman is 5 years younger than Joe Frazier and has a professional record of 38 victories. Before this, he had never defeated a more famous boxer.
During the game, although Joe Frazier played very actively, he was too short and his arms were too short. Every time he wanted to get close to George Foreman, he would be pushed away by the opponent. In the end, he could only be passively beaten and lost the game. .
In this game, the height difference between Link and Deonta is more than ten centimeters, and Deonta weighs more than 40 pounds heavier than Link.
During the match, Deonta only needs to learn George Foreman's style and not let Link get close, and there is a high probability of defeating Link, a legendary boxer.
When promoting this game, the American media listed the physical differences between Link and Deonta, and focused on the topic of "Link will lose", predicting that Link would have a high probability of losing in this game.
Under the constant publicity of the media, this game became popular even before it started. It was on many hot searches in a row, including three hot searches on the day of the game.
As a result, many people were paying attention to this game, wanting to see if Link would lose.
On that day, 28,000 spectators came to the Staples Arena auditorium, filling all the auditoriums.
"Frank, this match is arranged too hastily. Link should fight in a few more heavyweight matches. When he is fully adapted to this type of match, it would be more appropriate to fight Deonta."
In the audience, De La Hoya looked at Link and Deontay Wilder in the ring and said.
"This is Link's request. He hopes to find some powerful opponents to make the fight more enjoyable. In addition, arranging for him to fight Deonta will make it more topical. Look, there were so many people in the audience in the last game. There aren’t that many people.”
Frank Dewar said, looking at the packed auditorium behind him.
"Then have you ever thought about what to do if Link loses?"
"It doesn't matter if you lose. If you win a boxing match, you will lose. With Link's current influence, a loss doesn't matter much."
"No, no, it's not that simple. Link is considered the most powerful person in the world, Superman. If he loses, he will wear the loser label. This will definitely have a great impact on him."
Hoya said.
"What you said makes sense, but Link agreeing to compete means that he is sure to defeat Deonta. We should believe him."
Frank said, clenching his fists.
De La Hoya shook his head and was not very optimistic about Link's game.
If Link had fought more than ten heavyweight matches and defeated many boxers of the same age, instead of veterans like James Toney and Holyfield.
Link still has some chance of winning this game.
But he only participated in two heavyweight matches, defeating two old men who were greatly reduced in strength.
Now suddenly facing a tall, young, well-beaten boxer like Deonta.
De La Hoya didn't think Link had much chance of winning.
"George, according to your judgment, who can win this game?"
In the front row of the audience, Tyson looked at George Foreman beside him and asked.
"It's hard to say. Both of them are equally strong and have a chance to win. Who will win the match can only be judged after the fight."
George Foreman crossed his arms and looked at the two boxers on the stage and said.
"I heard that Deontay trained with you for a while before. Did you teach him the trick of using the big to beat the small?"
Tyson smiled with his big gold teeth.
"There are no tricks, only some small skills. If Deontay wants to really beat Link, these skills alone are not enough. He must show stronger strength in strength, speed and technology."
George Foreman said.
Tyson nodded. Hearing Foreman admit that he taught Deonta the skills of the game, he felt that Deontay had a greater chance of winning than Link.
George Foreman was a peak in the heavyweight boxing world in the 1970s and 1980s. He defeated Joe Frazier at his peak in 1973. Before being defeated by Ali in 1974, he had a professional record of 40 wins.
He debuted in 1969 and retired in 1997. His professional record was 76 wins and 68 KOs in 81 fights. He was very strong.
In addition, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were not many tall boxers in the professional boxing world. George Foreman was one of them. He was also very good at using big to beat small. He liked to use his long arms to poke his opponents and interrupt the rhythm of his opponent's attack.
For this reason, Tyson and Foreman never fought each other from his debut in 1985 to Foreman's retirement in 1997.
In 1990, the two almost met, but the match was called off before it was decided.
The main reason was that Tyson was not confident enough to beat Foreman. Tyson was 178 cm tall, with an arm length of 180 cm. He liked to use uppercuts to hit his opponent's chin, which was very similar to Joe Frazier.
At that time, the media believed that if Tyson met Foreman, Tyson would have a higher probability of losing.
Later in 1996/1997, Tyson fought Holyfield, who was similar to Foreman, and lost both fights, which fully confirmed this point.
From these cases, when the height and arm length difference between the two sides exceeds 10 cm, the tall boxer is more likely to win.
Tyson touched his chin, took out his mobile phone and sent a message to O'Neal, asking him to watch the live broadcast of the game, as Link might lose.
O'Neal replied that he was watching it.
