Former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder appeared on a PBC podcast today, and the man who was so badly beaten, so comprehensively beaten, by Tyson Fury in their rematch of almost two months ago had a whole lot to say about the fight. Wilder said he underwent biceps surgery, injured as he was in the Fury rematch and that he will be allowed to resume training in May. However, it was what Wilder didn’t say – things he says he might speak about in the future – that proved most interesting.
Wilder, who was stopped in the seventh round when his corner-man, former champ Mark Breland, threw in the white towel, says he “wasn’t right,” and that “there were a lot of things that went on.” Wilder says he is looking ahead to the third fight with Fury and how he “doesn’t see Fury as a champion.”
“Everything that happened happened the last 15 minutes into the fight,” Wilder said. “There were a lot of things that went on. There were a lot of things that I don’t even want to talk about at this moment in time. I’m still reflecting on certain things. And I can’t believe the things that happened happened to me at that point in my career. Maybe I’ll come out with some things later on as things unfold and I get into camp.
“People that know boxing know that wasn’t Deontay Wilder that night. I can’t talk about a lot of things. But that wasn’t Deontay Wilder that night. You could see from the mask and my reaction, and certain things that I was doing in the ring from the first fight to the second fight. You don’t go backwards, you move forwards, and that night, I wasn’t myself. In my eyes, I don’t see Fury as champion. It’s still going. He ain’t the champion yet. We still got one more fight left.”
Wilder has zero intentions of taking any step-aside money to allow Fury to fight Anthony Joshua – he wants that third fight bad. Who knows when he will get it, the current boxing schedule nonexistent due to the coronavirus. But when the third fight does roll around, can Wilder possibly put things right and avenge the loss he suffered on February 22? Was there really “so many things” wrong with Wilder, or is the former champ like so many other once “invincible” fighters, and simply unable to admit the truth, that he was beaten by the better man?
The date now being spoken about for Fury-Wilder III is October 3. But nothing at all is in any way close to concrete at this strange, strange time.