By: Sean Crose
“I just want to let you know,” Deontay Wilder says directly to the camera in an Instagram post released Friday evening, “that I am here, your king is here, and we ain’t going nowhere.” Wilder is obviously referring in the video to the fallout from last Saturday night, when he was soundly bested by Tyson Fury in less than seven rounds at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. “The war,” Wilder says in the brief video, “has just begun.” Having now met Fury twice in the ring, drawing once, and losing last weekend, Wilder looks to be making it clear that he’s set on making a third fight with the towering Englishman.
“I will rise again,” he states in the video, where he’s wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and appears to be at home (a young child can be heard talking in the background at one point). “I am strong. I am a king. You can’t take my pride. I am a warrior. I’m a king that will never give up. I’m a king that will fight to the death.” Although he appeared willing to fight to the death last weekend, co-trainer Mark Breland arguably saved Wilder from himself when he threw in the towel in round seven, a fact Wilder doesn’t allude to the in the video. “If anyone don’t understand that,” Wilder continues, referring to his willingness to keep fighting, “don’t understand what it is to go to war, don’t understand what it is to fight, we will rise again. We will regain the title. I will be back. We will hold our heads up high.”
Wilder proceeds to compare himself to a mythological creature. “Your king is in great spirits,” he says, “and we will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and regain the title. I’ll see you in a few months, for the war has just begun.” Although the video, which lasts less than two minutes, comes across as over the top, this is an era of over the top heavyweights. Fury, for instance, has earned himself a well earned reputation for saying absolutely outlandish things over and over again. Perhaps it’s all a sign of the times.
Although he doesn’t mention Breland in the video, Lance Pugmire and Mike Coppinger are both reporting that Wilder does indeed wish to continue to have the former Olympian and welterweight titlist on his team. It had been suspected that Wilder would remove Breland from his camp after Breland stopped last weekend’s title match with Fury.
