Speaking to ESNEWS ahead of his comeback fight, Deontay Wilder touched on Anthony Joshua’s recent post fight controversy and predicted the outcome of an undisputed clash.
The Brit made a rambling speech after throwing two of Oleksandr Usyk’s belts out of the ring following a split decision loss. Wilder thinks the reasons for this were two-fold.
“I think the meltdown comes when you create such a fighter. You give them everything, you bring them along, try to avoid all the tough fights, and stuff like that. Then when it boils down to the wire and things start going downhill, you don’t really know who to trust and believe because you’ve been listening to all this fake stuff.”
“I feel we all have mental health [issues]. I advise all fighters to go get MRI scans, CAT scans, brain scans – because we have things internally going on with us that we may not feel. We can feel great all the time but when you get those tests done it says something different.”
“The head is not meant to be hit in the first place. At all.”
Wilder knows all about controversial post-fight antics. He famously sacked a member of his training team, Mark Breland, after he threw in the towel to protect his fighter from further damage.
Moving onto the future of the heavyweight division, Wilder gave his prediction for the potential undisputed fight between Tyson Fury and Usyk. It turns out that he’s picking his old rival.
“I think Fury will be too big for him. He just likes to use his size all the time, no matter what – and a lot of other things…”
“But most of all I think Usyk is too small. That would be my opinion – and I think Usyk has a stamina problem as well. You seen him with Joshua. If Joshua had enough stamina it would probably be a different result.”
Fans may be confused by his criticism of the Ukrainian’s stamina. It’s often been said about the champion that the longer a fight goes, the more he takes control. In fact, he proved that in the AJ rematch, absorbing huge shots in the ninth only to come back and win the final three rounds convincingly.
‘The Bronze Bomber’ went on to express interest in fighting Usyk, as well as all comers. First, though, he must come through Robert Helenius on October 15.