Deontay Wilder should now be looking ahead to a blockbusting showdown vs Anthony Joshua on March 9, but instead he is licking his wounds after a shock defeat by Joseph Parker.
The former WBC heavyweight king had signed to face AJ in that eagerly-awaited showdown in Saudi Arabia, all he had to to do make it a reality was avoid defeat against Parker on a massive ‘Day of Reckoning’ card last Saturday.
Latest Heavyweight Rankings: Top 10 AFTER ‘Day of Reckoning’
But things fell apart in a big way as Deontay (now 43-3-1) was completely befuddled as Parker executed trainer Andy Lee’s gameplan to perfection. The result was a near shutout in favour of the New Zealander, who won by scores of 118-111, 118-110 and 120-108.
Wilder on Parker loss
Later Wilder took to Instagram to speak to his 2.7million followers about what went wrong in his first fight for 14 months.
He explained: “We came up short tonight, I don’t know what happened to me to be honest. My timing was off and I didn’t throw my punches, I didn’t let my hands go like I was supposed to.
“Sometimes you get like that but you live to see another fight, you live to see another moment. I’m still full of happiness, I’m still full of joy and I’m still full of smiles. Sorry if I let anyone down, but we’ll be back you know, that’s the good thing about it.”
As for the future, Wilder appears to be in no mood to leave the sport at the age of 38 on a losing note.
He said, quite simply: “This is not the end, we’ll be back.”
Wilder had reportedly signed for a two-fight deal with Joshua, but it appears that is dead for now. Instead the British star is likely to head in a different direction following his own impressive win over Otto Wallin on Saturday. Potential next opponents include Filip Hrgovic (potentially for the IBF title), Francis Ngannou and Andy Ruiz Jr.
All of the title belts right now of course are held by Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk ahead of their eagerly-awaited unification match, again in Saudi, on February 17.
