Deontay Wilder’s “I want a body on my record” statement sure to outrage, offend many

Deontay Wilder could be said to be in a pretty bad mood right now, an angry mood. Maybe it’s due to the harsh words British promoter Eddie Hearn had to say about him when he found out the reigning WBC heavyweight king wasn’t going to attend tomorrow night’s Anthony Joshua-Joseph Parker fight and work as a pundit for Sky Sports as planned, maybe Wilder’s pissed because the fight he really wants, with Joshua, seems no closer to being made.

But despite this and Wilder’s probably frustrations, what the 40-0 puncher had to say yesterday, as he was a guest on radio show The Breakfast Club, is sure to be taken as wholly unjustified and offensive. When asked about his feelings towards his opponent in the ring, the fact that he too has a family he wants to return home safely to, Wilder replied how he “wants one,” as in “a body on my record.”

Smiling at times, looking stern at others, Wilder made these comments (picked up by The New York Post, a video of the radio interview attached to the article) and then explained how he basically transforms into another person when he’s in the ring, into another entity: The Bronze Bomber. It is this alter ego that wants to kill an opponent, Wilder explained, not Deontay.

“Nah, I want a body on my record, I want one. I really do,” Wilder said when it was expressed on his behalf that surely he doesn’t want to seriously hurt an opponent in the ring. “That’s the Bronze Bomber – he want one. I mean, I always tell people, when I’m in the ring, I am The Bronze Bomber. With him, it’s so crazy; when I’m The Bronze Bomber I really don’t care. Everything about me changes. When I’m in that state of mind, I really don’t care about my opponent. When I do what I’m supposed to do, then I come back into Deontay Wilder and I can show sportsmanship.”

Scary words, don’t you think? Controversial, too? No doubt. But is Wilder, as crass as his choice of words may be judged as, merely giving us a powerful insight into the mind of an incredibly powerful fighter? Didn’t the idolised Mike Tyson say, a number of times when referring to an opponent, how, “if he don’t die it don’t count?” Didn’t the legendary George Foreman once admit how, in his younger days, he would “literally look at these heads (of his ring rivals) as a trophy?”

“One of these days I’m going to kill one of these fools,” Foreman recalled thinking as a younger fighter.

But Wilder may well get singled out for his own brutal words, as he has said he actually “wants a body.”

In the interview, Wilder went further, saying how “somebody gonna go,” as in one of his future opponents will get killed by him in the ring one day.

“The power that I have, it’s easy to be able to do,” Wilder said. “I thought I had one one time, with [Artur] Szpilka, because he wasn’t breathing when he hit the canvas. Somebody gonna go. I always tell the media, I want one on my record, because I’m not myself when I’m in that state of mind. If I do take a life in the ring, me, Deontay, will feel bad. But I also know, we signed up for this.”