Deontay Wilder has reverted back to his old ways by offering up excuses for his shock defeat to Joseph Parker. The American was thoroughly outboxed by his foe at the back end of last year in Saudi Arabia on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ bill.
Wilder never really got going and struggled to find a home for his trademark right hand over the 12-round distance. Many pundits suggested ring rust had played a part in his lacklustre display having only completed one round of boxing in just over two years since his trilogy fight with Tyson Fury.
Wilder agrees with this assessment but didn’t stop there. He adds that the long flight to Saudi Arabia took it out of him as well. “It was a boring fight, nothing really happened,” he told ES NEWS.
“I went right back to training the next day. He really didn’t do nothing, they just went off the little flurries or whatever. I was out the ring for nearly two years with only one round and faced someone who was consistently fighting.
“I had less than three weeks to train. I had to go 10 to 12 hours. In the training for that I had to travel two times, 20 hours of travelling. And those guys were already in Europe, they were only 2/3 hours away. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying what I had to go through.”
This comes after Wilder insisted that he had ‘zoned out’ rather than been hurt by Parker during an eighth round that saw the former WBC champion hang on for dear life after eating a series of clubbing overhands. “He caught me in a dazing moment,” Wilder said on his wobbly eighth round. “I f***ing zoned out for one minute, I don’t know what the f*** happened. The punch came but it wasn’t nothing that hurt, none of his punches fazed me at all.”
Wilder has become known for making excuses for his shortcomings. After losing to Fury back in 2020 the Bronze Bomber reeled off a litany of bizarre reasons why he was beaten by the Brit that deflected the blame away from himself.
The worst of the bunch was Wilder claiming his walkout outfit was so heavy that it weakened his legs before the bout and alleging his trainer Mark Breland had spiked his water. Clearly, Wilder hasn’t learned much from his mistakes.