You can count out Floyd Mayweather Senior when it comes to him being someone new climbing aboard to train former WBC heavyweight champ Deontay Wilder as the 34-year-old tries to win back his belt and revive his career following that brutal stoppage loss to Tyson Fury. If the February defeat was brutal, what Mayweather Sr. has had to say about Wilder is equally brutal.
Talking about “The Bronze Bomber” on the Mayweather YouTube channel, the trainer and father of “Money” Mayweather did not hold back in his assessment of Wilder. Or Fury, come to that. Mayweather said “a lot of people have been asking me to train him,” but that he doesn’t feel Wilder “can be fixed.”
“Well, I bet on Wilder (to beat Fury) but he showed me a lot of s*** that he didn’t know,” Mayweather Sr. said. “A lot of people have been asking me to train him. But I don’t know if he can be fixed. There’s a lot of things he’s got to do that I know that he doesn’t know. Neither one of them really looked like nothing where somebody can come out and really tear up someone. Wilder looked [bad]. I don’t know about those fights. Them guys, they just ain’t got it. I liked Wilder at first. But now I ain’t got nothing to say about him except he’s a piece of trash.”
Ouch.
It’s true Wilder was pretty badly shown up for not having learned the basics of the sport, with Fury really taking him to school before the corner threw in the towel. But surely Mayweather Sr. must give Fury credit for having done what he did, and against such a lethal puncher. As for Wilder’s chances of regaining his belt, of avenging the loss to Fury, many people agree he needs a new head trainer, a new voice in the corner. Wilder has of course spoken about a team reshuffle, yet we have not heard anything in some weeks.
Can Wilder come back, in so doing make Mayweather Sr. and a whole lot of other critics of his eat their words? Wilder has had four months in which to look at the tape of the Fury fight, see where he went wrong and admit to himself that, yes, he was beaten fair and square. If he has not done this, Mayweather Sr’s words will likely be proven correct.
Still, is there really any need for Mayweather to be so nasty, so brutal?