Deontay Wilder took his first professional loss in Saturday’s heavyweight championship TKO defeat against Tyson Fury.
Wilder went into the fight with a 42-0-1 record — with that one draw coming against Fury in 2018 — and he hasn’t exactly been taking this first defeat in 44 tries well.
He has basically gone through a Rolodex of excuses.
On Monday, Wilder told The Athletic that the elaborate, 45-pound costume that he wore during his ring walk had his legs tired by Round 3, rendering him unable to deliver one of his devastating right-hand blows to Fury. But that wasn’t all.
Wilder didn’t think referee Kenny Bayless enforced the rules fairly either. He told The Athletic that Bayless delivered an impassioned warning in the locker room about punches to the back of the head. But come fight time, Bayless let Fury punch the back of the head with impunity.
Via The Athletic:
“Bayless had come in my dressing room, looked me in my eyes and said if I hit Fury in the back of the head – rabbit punch – or hit off of the break, he would disqualify me or deduct two points from me. I guess those rules just applied to me because they didn’t apply to my opponent. (Fury) hit me in the back of the neck and the head all night and Bayless didn’t do anything about it, to the point I got lumps and bruises. That was a thing that was very frustrating to me.”
He continued to say about Bayless deducting a point from Fury in the fifth round:
“Why are you taking a point now when he’s been doing this all through the fight?” Wilder said he roared to Bayless. “What happened to that speech? What happened to that disqualification? All those things you said you’d do to me?”
Wilder added that he was prepared for Fury’s antics, but he wasn’t ready to fight on wobbly legs. Wilder also plans to activate the rematch clause and fight the third leg of a Wilder-Fury trilogy this year.
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