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By GREG BEACHAM AP Sports Writer
The world champion boxers have responded to their first career defeats in all kinds of dramatic ways as they scramble to cope after their invincibility mental armor has been punctured.
Some are firing their longtime coaches. Others make incredible, wacky excuses. Almost all insist that the defeat was an unfair and undeserved setback that will be corrected immediately.
Deontay Wilder did all three in the days, weeks and months after Tyson Fury beat him badly in February 2020.
The former WBC heavyweight champion clearly struggled to cope with his first loss since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and he responded by shaking his career and reputation in an effort to improve it. Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) also exercised the rematch clause in his contract, forcing Fury to return to a Las Vegas ring with him on Saturday night for the long-delayed completion of an already memorable trilogy.
“You are looking at a rejuvenated and reinvented Deontay Wilder,” he said recently. “Old Deontay is no longer there. I can’t explain it to you, I have to show you.
The man who helped transform Wilder from an aspiring basketball player to a late-flowering boxer and eventual heavyweight champion is no longer here either: Wilder fired coach Mark Breland, who threw in the towel when his fighter got bombed by Fury.
Wilder blamed his performance on a litany of fantastic factors – Breland ramming his water bottle with a muscle relaxer, Fury using illegal gloves and even leg fatigue from the elaborate costume he wore on his walk in the ring. . He also accused referee Kenny Bayless, a teetotaler, of being drunk.
It all seemed ridiculous to everyone except Wilder and his most dedicated fans, but dealing with losses is a tough part of any boxer’s job. More important is whether Wilder found a way to improve on the fighter who seemed tactically overwhelmed and physically unable to overcome him for most rounds of his first two fights with Fury (30-0-1, 21 KO), the confident British champion. .
“I have dedicated myself and I have devoted my time and my body, me and my team, to reinventing myself,” Wilder said Wednesday. “I am ready to reintroduce myself into the world. … This fight is about redemption, retaliation and punishment.
Wilder replaced Breland with Malik Scott, a former heavyweight who was eliminated by Wilder in 2014. Scott once again devoted Wilder to the fundamentals of movement and punches, with the belief that Wilder can overcome Fury’s technical precision. with practical application of the physical forces of his fighter.
But every fight for Wilder is in the head, and it’s still unclear what kind of shape he’s in mentally after his frenzy of mad apologies in 2020. On Wednesday, Wilder said he still believes everything he does. claimed about the loss, and he called Breland “an unfair coach.”
“My energy is like my mind,” Wilder said. “It’s very violent.
After Wilder’s rematch clause and a referee’s decision forced Fury to abandon a scheduled summer game with fellow British champion Anthony Joshua, the trilogy fight was delayed from July to October by a COVID outbreak -19 in Fury’s camp. Those three months of training could prove to be significant for Wilder, who has taken a more mature perspective on the loss in recent interviews.
“I needed everything that happened in this (second) fight,” Wilder said. “It really was a blessing in disguise.”
Despite sort of a dedicated training month, Wilder is still a wild card – which fits this game perfectly, since Fury isn’t exactly a conventional human being himself.
While promoting the fight earlier this summer, Wilder essentially declined to speak at his own press conference – then engaged in a six-minute stare with Fury at the showdown ceremony.
And at their last press conference on Wednesday, the promoters did not allow Wilder and Fury to face each other for fear a fight could break out.
“Saturday night is going to be a different fight,” Wilder said. “It’s rare that we have trilogies like this, and I really believe this one makes history.”
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