Deontay Wilder’s denial and why you should never blame a boxer for their excuses

Wilder’s excuses for losing a rematch with Tyson Fury have grown increasingly fanciful, writes Luke Brown. But that doesn't mean we should ridicule them

Deontay Wilder, in the costume he would later blame his defeat on (Getty)

Breaking news: Deontay Wilder still believes he was desperately unfortunate to lose his WBC heavyweight world championship to Tyson Fury in a fight so emphatically one-sided it was a very real surprise that it stretched into seven rounds.

“There are a lot of things that I do not even want to talk about at this moment in time,” a cryptic Wilder said on the PBC podcast this week, immediately before doing just that.

“People that know boxing that wasn’t Deontay Wilder, I was a zombie that night.

“In my eyes I don't see Fury as a champion, we've still got one more fight left. I'm looking forward to giving the world the best of Deontay Wilder. I'm not done yet.”

Since that memorable February night in Las Vegas, when Fury first walked down and then stopped a stunned Wilder to become a two-time heavyweight world champion, the American has cycled through excuses with the same efficiency that he used to render men unconscious.

Perhaps the most amusing was that he had found his 40lb ring-walk costume debilitatingly heavy, causing his legs to become prematurely tired. The problem with this excuse, beyond its obvious ridiculousness? In a previous interview, he had boasted of always training with a 45lb vest on to maximise his performance.

Wilder, once among the most feared champions in boxing, has now been turned into a figure of fun, mocked by both his peers and the punters alike.

Interestingly, one of the few people to lend a sympathetic ear to Wilder is Fury himself. During a trip to the famous This Morning sofa on daytime television, Fury resisted the invitation to mock Wilder offered to him by noted boxing experts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. “In every fighter’s mind, there’s got to be a reason why they’ve lost,” was his philosophical reply.

“It can never be a simple fact (of) I wasn’t good enough on the night and lost to the better guy.”

This being boxing, there are cynical, financial reasons for Fury’s generosity, of course. Try as he might, he knows that there is precious little chance he will convince Wilder to abandon the plan for a trilogy fight so that he can take on Anthony Joshua in a lucrative unification contest. That fight was unlikely to happen in 2020 even before the coronavirus crisis. It is nothing short of impossible now. So Fury needs to continue selling the trilogy content as an exciting, dangerous fight worthy of people’s money.

Anthony Joshua will fight Kubrat Pulev on 20 June (Reuters)

But there is also a truth to Fury’s assessment that is ignored every time another one of Wilder’s excuses is knocked back. Wilder has to fight Fury in a trilogy bout either later this year or early next. It is the only opportunity he has to immediately win his world title back, plus the most financially attractive fight available to him. Taking step-aside money is not an option, nor is accepting a tune-up fight. Therefore, Wilder has to generate intrigue by maintaining he was wronged. He is simply keeping the show on the road.

There is another reason we should listen to Wilder’s protestations rather than ignore them. His repeated excuses provide truly valuable insight into his mindset and strategy ahead of the third fight. Wilder was walked down and beaten up in the rematch, his one-shot strategy utterly exposed as hopelessly inadequate in the face of Fury’s power and ringcraft. If he accepts that he was fairly beaten, he will have to amend that famously one-dimensional style. If he doesn’t, it’s hard to see how the trilogy fight ends any differently to the second.

Wilder vs Fury III is not as interesting a fight as Joshua vs Fury. There is little doubt about that. But the increasingly lurid headlines ever since the rematch mean that it will still be unmissable viewing. It is only natural that Wilder has maintained he deserved better in Las Vegas. And despite his increasingly fanciful statements, he should neither be ridiculed or ignored.