If you were tuned in last August and happened to find out that Johann Duhaupas was going to face top-ten-ranked, undefeated WBC title holder Deontay Wilder, you probably now understand why we have at least three of the 6 questions of journalism. Who the hell is Johann Duhaupas? Why does he get to fight Deontay Wilder? How did he last 11 rounds? Of course, all your questions could probably be condensed into a single word, headlinese-style: "WHAT?!"

Well, the hyper-cynical Charles Farrell may have called it January of last year, and I'm unfortunately starting to believe him. He maintains that if he ran boxing, he'd have had Stiverne take a dive when he fought Wilder for the WBC title, then have Wilder fight bums until Wlad wound up fighting Briggs. When Wlad inevitably hands Briggs his hypertrophic (but lovable!) butt, they'd be fighting in America. The promotion for Wilder vs. Klitschko would play it like Rocky IV: Drago (Klitschko) would brutalize Creed (Briggs), and then Rocky (Wilder) would have to step up. I'm not going to lie, I'd buy the hell out of that PPV as long as it didn't have some kind of $40 Mayweather Tax associated with it. There's a lot to recommend this theory—seeing Don King in Bermane Stiverne's corner gave me a feeling much akin to that of a vampire novel protagonist recognizing an acquaintance in a 17^th century painting. I also need to give Farrell some praise for nailing a short description of Briggs as a "charismatic cartoon heel." But most importantly, he said something very important, and he needs to be recognized for having the the brass to put his reputation on the line before I came in and started making hay off it. I'm going to give it its own line because it's important:

Deontay Wilder doesn't box like someone who holds a world title.

How the hell could a weirdo like Bermane "Rock 'em, Sock 'em" Stiverne make Wilder look unnatural in the ring? Watch that first knockdown (the one that wasn't scored as such) against Stiverne. Check out the way that Wilder opens up on a wobbled B.Ware with nothing but alternating hooks to the head, and compare it to the way Canelo Alvarez dismantled poor schlimazel Alfredo Angulo when he shelled up. Compare it to Dr. Steelhammer's well-disciplined killing instinct, and the way that he keeps his opponent smothered even when he's moving in for the knockout. I'm not saying that Wilder is a poor boxer. He's really good at using his height and keeping the right distance, his feet are nice and fast, and he's got great placement with his jab. He's got a bit of a check hook on him, and the heaviness of his right hand is undisputed. But he's one-dimensional, when you watch Wilder fight you're pretty sure what he's going to do—stay outside and stick the jab repeatedly to set up a big right straight. Distance is most of his defense, so he hates being in the pocket. Pressure fighters like Stiverne and Molina back him right up to the ropes. His chin is still a little bit suspect, especially if you think that Stiverne took a dive when they fought—how am I to believe that Wilder stayed up through 12 rounds of punishment by Stiverne, but got wobbled repeatedly by no-names like Molina and Duhaupas?

Wilder vs. Duhaupas was actually a bit surprising in that Wilder wound up fighting in the pocket. A slow and increasingly-exhausted Duhaupas tried to stalk Wilder down, absorbing a bunch of punishment in order to do so, featuring, yes, the aforementioned right straight and check hook. Wilder got wobbled a couple of times, especially with Duhaupas's left, but escaped back to the center of the ring or tied up as required. and a lot of Duhaupas's offense fell short of its mark. There's an entertaining bit in round 9 where Duhaupas ducks something like four or five successive hooks from Wilder, but Duhaupas was too tired, slow, and beaten up to keep it going or capitalize. In round 10, it was like Duhaupas forgot why he wanted to be in close: Wilder let him in, and then just teed off, ripping a closed cut on his nose open again with a pair of thunderous uppercuts, finishing up with a right, and then doing the exact same thing in the next round for a TKO. Deontay Wilder improves to 35-0-0.

As far as boxing goes, I'm convinced Wilder won't pan out in the long term. If he wants to unify his title, he's gotta fight Klitschko or (unlikely, but hey!) Fury. How well do you think Wilder can play against Wlad in the straight punches department? Or failing that, how well do you think Wilder can use his size to his advantage against an enormous (6'9", with an 88" reach) mutant like Tyson Fury? He's got a mandatory title defense against Povetkin coming up, which I'd call a toss-up. Povetkin's got the chin of Jay Leno, and probably hits the hardest of anyone Wilder's come up against so far, but he's also the type of sluggish infighter that Wilder feasts on. If that goes well, though, I'd definitely start taking him a lot more seriously. If it doesn't? No big deal. He's gotten in, he's fought, and he's made $500,000. Even if it does turn out that Stiverne took a dive and Wilder's been unfairly propped up, I can't really resent him. Boxing has a certain way of correcting itself, and the WBC, like justice, turns slow but grinds exceeding fine.

Photo Credit: USAF Photographic Archives (via Wikimedia Commons)