It's funny cause in the first few years of his title reign there was little to no hype around him and he knocked out ppl cold even then. When his Stiverne rematch KO went viral he kind of blew up and I guess more casual sports fans found him too.
Anyway, a lot of fans in the US ate the hype up cause they wanted an American fighter to rule the HW division again badly. It's understandable but Wilder was never gonna be that guy.
Taking advantage of this, his power, and his undoubtedly dramatic fights they built him up as once of the more recognized names in the current boxing scene. Good marketing job I guess bringing out so much from someone as limited as Wilder.
I never believed the hype, but I thought his first Ortiz win was impressive. Ortiz was his only top 10 ranked opponent other than Fury during his whole reign btw. Not entirely his fault (Povetkin situation...) but his handlers were more concerned with showcasing his KO power against in-house opponents than getting him in there with good competition, at least up until the last 2 years of his reign.
Realistically his stans should have known Wilder not always gonna KO everyone forever, it's unprecedented at a high level but the hype was stronger and the talk about skills went out the window, some of his stans felt confident Wilder doesn't even need skills.
PBC even felt confident in the Fury rematch lead up to market him as a future ATG which is just batshyt crazy cause I don't even know if the guy gonna be a HOF-er regardless what anyone says about empty stats of title defenses.
This may sound harsh, Wilder is/was an exciting fighter who always guaranteed some drama in his fights which makes for a great TV fighter but as for quality he was never THAT good.
hold up something is not right