By: Hans Themistode
Trash talking is a common theme in every sport. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of back and forth banter between two competitors, but there’s always a line that many of them choose not to cross.
In the sport of boxing, that line is blurred and has been crossed on several occasions. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be anything that is off limits.
WBC Heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder has a tendency to get extremely dark when discussing his upcoming fights. Wilder of course, has placed all 43 of his opponents down on the canvas. Other than Lineal champion Tyson Fury, none have been able to make it back to their feet. On February 22nd, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Nevada, Wilder will look to make sure that Fury doesn’t escape the same fate as those before him.
“He surprised me the first fight when he got up,” said Wilder during a recent conference call. “But I promise you, he will not get up this time around.”
The words of Wilder seem to be nothing out of the ordinary. Many fighters have given the same threat to their opponents before turning their lights off during their match. Yet with Wilder, his words don’t seem to be just hyperbole.
If you remember back in 2017, Wilder was given the chance to take on the man who he defeated for the WBC crown in Bermane Stiverne. The bad blood between the two fighters was serious. The constant arguing during press conferences was punctuated with threats made from both parties.
Stiverne wanted the knockout victory, but Wilder on the other hand, wanted something much more than that.
“This is the funeral right here, there’s just no casket yet,” said Wilder when discussing his upcoming rematch with Stiverne at the time. “This fight right here, I will get a body on my record. I’ve been wanting one for a long time anyways. I want a body and he will be the body.”
Wilder didn’t quite get the “body” he was looking for on the night, but he surely came close. The one sided beating he dished out to Stiverne resulted in three knockdowns before he ultimately closed the show in the very first round.
The death threats didn’t merely stop with Stiverne as Wilder dished out another brutal prediction for his fight with his mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale in 2019.
“You ain’t never seen death in its face,” said Wilder as both himself and Breazeale faced off for the first time during a press conference a few months back. “You ain’t never seen a killer. If he dies, he dies.”
Again, Wilder dished out another death threat and he seemingly almost delivered as he brutally knocked Breazeale out in the very first round.
Do you see the pattern building here? Wilder is a terrific fighter, but once he takes things on a personal level, he seems to take things up a notch. For some, it may seem distasteful, but he seemingly gets the results he is looking for every single time.
As irate as Wilder seemed to be for his contests against Breazeale and Stiverne, he seems to be even more exasperated for his rematch with Fury.
“I can’t wait for February 22nd so I can lay him to rest. God may have mercy, but I won’t.”
Wilder is sure to hear a bit of backlash for his choice of words. With that being said however, his words should be taken as just that, words.
Following his wins over Stiverne and Breazeale, Wilder had nothing but good words to say about them and wished them nothing but good health. It’s clear that the words of Wilder are nothing more than a tool to help promote the fight. But with that being said, every time Wilder has promised a catastrophic ending, he has delivered.