DEONTAY WILDER did not want to talk. He was terse, almost angry, when speaking to the British press ahead of the press conference to announce his July 24 WBC title challenge against Tyson Fury in Las Vegas.
This will be the third fight the two heavyweights have shared. After a controversial draw in their first encounter, Fury emphatically stopped the American last year in Wilderโs first professional defeat. But that has left Wilder simmering with resentment.
โI hate him,โ he said of Fury. โI donโt think nothing of him. Bad blood there will always be. Bad blood.โ
That enmity was only compounded by Furyโs teamโs very public negotiations to make a fight with Anthony Joshua this summer instead. Wilderโs representatives had to enforce his contracted third fight with Fury through an arbitration.
โThey should have got me early but they ran. They tried to dodge me. They did me wrong when I helped him and his family out. I put money in his pocket. I guess being a coward is his thing. I didnโt see none of you write about it,โ Wilder said. โWe were very confident because we knew we were in the right.
โWith that being said, silence is golden. We kept our silence. It wasnโt hard to do.โ
His manager Shelly Finkel added, โThey were going for the bigger fight they felt, they didnโt want to honour the contract that they had signed, that they had agreed to. They kept pushing it back.
โDeontay was ready, willing and able to fight without an audience and then the Joshua fight looked like it could happen and they tried to get out of the contract. Thatโs the bottom line and thatโs how it was seen in the arbitration.โ
Wilder blamed former trainer Mark Breland for throwing in the towel in that fight, a decision which many other observers lauded Breland for. Now Wilder has brought in a former sparring partner Malik Scott as his trainer.
โA lot things are going to be different,โ Wilder explained. โIโve been training very hard. My mind is very violent.
โWhatever he [Fury] does Iโll have an answer for, just like answering the phone when it rings.โ
If Wilder is victorious, heโll be looking for the winner of Anthony Joshuaโs next fight and the other three major heavyweight titles. โThe mission is still the same,โ he says. โIt never changed. One champion, one face, one name.โ