Deontay Wilder says “I want a body on my record”

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow

In a scary sounding comment, undefeated heavyweight knockout artist Deontay Wilder says he looking to add a body to his resume. The comment from the powerful puncher Wilder has sent shock waves through the boxing world, because it’s comment that seems unsportsmanlike in nature.

Fighters often say they’re going to hurt their opponents and make it a war inside the ring. But you don’t hear fighters saying they’re hoping to add a body to their resume.

World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman doesn’t believe that Wilder could make such a comment about wanting to kill someone inside the ring.

”I have known Bronze Bomber for a long time. I respect him and do not believe he could say that he wants to kill someone in the ring,” Mauricio Sulaiman said on his social media site.

Wilder did make the comment that he wants to add a body his record. The only question is was Wilder serious when he said that. If so, it’s obviously a disturbing thing to say. Wilder is giving his free thoughts, and not sure you do anything about that. Wilder doesn’t break the rules while competing. If he’s thinking about hurting a person with every punch, what can you do? The nature of the sport of boxing is to hurt your opponent, to knock him out, and move on to your next fight. In its very nature, boxing is brutal combat. Fans love boxing because it’s modern day gladiators going at it.

“I want a body on my record. I want one. I want one, I really do,” Wilder said to the BreakfastclubAM. ”That’s the ‘Bronze Bomber,’ he wants one. I always tell people, when I’m in the ring, like I’m the ‘Bronze Bomber.’ Everything about me changes. I don’t get nervous, I don’t get scared, I don’t get butterflies, I don’t have no feelings towards the man I’m gonna fight.”

Wilder knocked Artur Szpilka unconscious in the 9th round of their fight in January 2016. Like in Wilder’s last contest against Cuban Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz, his fight with Szpilka was a close match where it was still very much up for grabs going into the 9th round. Wilder suddenly changed all that when unleashed a big right hand to the head of Szpilka that knocked him clean out in the 9th round. Szpilka was then taken out of the ring on a stretcher.

Szpilka has fought only once since then in losing to unbeaten heavyweight contender Adam Kownacki by a 4th round knockout last year in July. Kownacki doesn’t hit as hard as Wilder. Kownacki was just more willing to slug it out and end the fight quickly. Wilder is often cautious early in his fights. When Wilder does let his right hand go finally, he frequently ends the fight at that point. There are so few heavyweights that can take Wilder’s right hands for any length of time without getting knocked out. The only fighter that has been able to go the distance with Wilder was Bermane Stiverne in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to him in their first fight in January 2015. That was a fight in which Wilder broken his right hand early in the contest, and he fought the last 10 rounds with the injury. In their rematch last November, a healthy Wilder knocked Stiverne out in the 1st round.

“I thought I had one [body] one time, like I said, with Szpilka, because he wasn’t breathing when he hit the canvas,” Wilder said. “Somebody’s gotta go. I want that on my record, because when I’m in that state on mind, like I ain’t myself.”

Wilder seems to be letting the boxing fans in on what goes through his head when he’s inside the squared circle and competing. It’s just him and his opponent. Boxing is a dangerous sport for anybody, and Wilder appears to become another person when he’s in combat. It’s war inside the ring, and it takes a special person to put himself in that battlefield where anything can happen. Wilder is letting the boxing fans know that he doesn’t play around when he’s fighting. Right or wrong, Wilder is saying that he wants to hurt his opponents. He’s perhaps the biggest puncher in the sport today and clearly avoided by many. It’s thought that IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn want no part of the 6’7” Wilder.

Hearn’s efforts at trying to push his fighter Dillian Whyte onto Wilder looks to be an attempt to pick him off and keep him away from Joshua. Wilder isn’t motivated to fight Whyte though, and he feels it’s Hearn’s way of protecting his asset Joshua from harm. Wilder says he will fight Whyte if Hearn puts in the contract that he gets to fight Joshua afterwards in his next fight. What’s telling is Hearn doesn’t want to do that. Hearn won’t include a contract with Joshua’s name on it. He just wants Wilder to fight Whyte without conditions. So, if Wilder beats Whyte, there’s no guarantee that he’ll ever get a fight against Joshua.

Wilder was going to work for Sky Sports today for the Joshua vs. Joseph Parker fight at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. However, once Wilder found out that he wasn’t going to be able to hype his fight with Joshua, and that it was going to be him being pressured to fight Whyte instead, he backed out and chose not to fly over to the UK.

Wilder said he thought that he could hype the Joshua fight, but it turns out Hearn wanted to put him in position to build a fight between him and Whyte, which he’s not interested in. Wilder said that his management team advised him not to attend. It was a team decision. Some boxing fans think that Hearn would have used the opportunity of Wilder being in Cardiff to discuss signing him to his Matchtoom Boxing stable. They believe that Hearn would have made a try to sign Wilder, and turn him into a star. Hearn believes he could do a better job of turning Wilder into a big name.

Unless Hearn would have Wilder only fighting in the UK, it’s unlikely he would be successful at making him a bigger star than he is today in the U.S. Hearn signed American Daniel Jacobs recently, and he’s done nothing to turn him into a star in the U.S. In the one fight Jacobs has had with Hearn as his promoter, he beat fringe middleweight contender Luis Arias by a 12 round decision last November. Jacobs is now fighting junior middleweight Maciel Sulecki on April 28. The fight has not attracted much interest from the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Hearn likely wouldn’t be successful at turning Wilder into a star, especially if he continued to keep him away from Joshua.

“I come here for one thing, and that’s to knock you out and go back home. The power that I have, man; it’s easy to be able to do so,” Wilder said. “My power is so crazy that I don’t even know the [strength] of it,” he said. “I can only imagine me getting into a fight in the street. It’d be crazy. If I’m putting on 10-ounce gloves and hitting guys like I hit Szpilka, when I came here in Brooklyn and fought him, he was dead three to five seconds. Just imagine. That’s what I don’t condone — violence outside the ring. I don’t wanna see it.”

Wilder in a street fight without gloves would be dangerous, especially for someone that has never boxed before to try and take his right hand shots. It would be dangerous for anyone to be hit by Wilder’s right hand shots. Someone would be asking for trouble to fight Wilder in a street fight.

“[My hand] is registered. It’s just like having a pistol for me,” he said. “If I’m at harm, or harm come at me and threaten me, I have the right to defend myself,” Wilder said.

Wilder, 32, doesn’t have an opponent scheduled for his next title defense. He stopped Luis Ortiz in the 10th round on March 3 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Wilder has another voluntary defense due. Wilder could face someone like Dominic Breazeale, Adam Kownacki or Charles Martin. It’ll likely be someone that hardcore boxing fans are familiar with. Wilder isn’t going to take on a soft opponent because he’s already 6 easy defenses against Bermane Stiverne, Chris Arreola, Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas and Gerald Washington. Ortiz was Wilder’s first really tough challenger.