Deontay Wilder Forged the TSS 2019 Knockout of the Year

Deontay Wilder has no peers, at least not among his fellow heavyweights, when it comes to producing highlight reel knockouts. The monstrous right hand he landed on Artur Szpilka in 2016 left the Polish challenger unconscious before he hit the deck. And who can forget the indelible image of Bermane Stiverne in their 2017 rematch, with Stiverne using the lower strand of rope as his pillow as he reposed in dreamland with his legs tucked awkwardly beneath him?

In 2019, the “Bronze Bomber” fought twice and added two more highlight reel knockouts to his portfolio. Picking one as being more electrifying than the other invites an argument, but pick one we must and the TSS Knockout of the Year goes to his stoppage of Dominic Breazeale.

To refresh your memory, Wilder and Breazeale met on May 18 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Wilder was making the ninth defense of his WBC world heavyweight title. Breazeale was 20-1 heading in with the lone defeat inflicted by Anthony Joshua.

There was no feeling-out. Early in the opening round, Wilder stung Breazeale with a hard combination that sent him back against the ropes. But Breazeale came off the ropes with a punch that hurt Wilder, forcing him to clinch, and then suddenly it was he, Wilder, who was the one who was backing up.

That would be all she wrote for Dominic Breazeale. Moments later, as the fight wended in to the final minute of the opening round, Wilder nailed Breazeale with a right cross that landed flush on the challenger’s jaw and down he went flat on his back.

Breazeale rolled over and got to his feet just as referee Harvey Dock tolled “10” but he was unsteady and would have likely fallen backward if the ropes had not held him up. Dock wisely waived it off.

Stylistically, Wilder is one of the most unorthodox heavyweight champions to have ever come down the pike. His jab has no snap; it’s a pawing jab that he uses as a range finder. But his hands are lightning quick and his right hand is lethal.

Six months after KOing Breazeale, he scored another one-punch knockout, collapsing Luis Ortiz with a straight right hand that landed right on the kisser, a punch that in Deontay’s own words was delivered with great torque. That lightning bolt came near the end of the seventh round. Wilder was trailing on all three cards and yet there was no great sense of foreboding that his title was being frittered away. He had the equalizer and it wasn’t a question of “if” he would eventually land it, but “when.”

After the fight, all the talk in the media room was whether Wilder had the hardest punch of any heavyweight; not just now but the hardest punch ever – harder even than Joe Louis or Joe Frazier or Mike Tyson.

If one had put odds back in January on which fighter would score the TSS 2019 Knockout of the Year, Deontay Wilder’s name would have been at the top of the list. Chalk one up for the chalk.

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