Tank vs. Rayo? Davis Turns to Junior Welterweight Gold Amid Lomachenko Layoff

 

It looked like there were no obstacles in the way of making the last true superfight possible at lightweight. Both Gervonta Davis and Vasyl Lomachenko scored knockout wins over Frank Martin and George Kambosos Jr., respectively, and both camps seemed open to a long-anticipated showdown. Though the fight is at its most marketable and feasible from a boxing politics standpoint, there remains one key hurdle: the fighters themselves must want the bout. Despite calling out Davis for years, Lomachenko has decided he's done fighting for the year, just as the two seemed to be heading toward a showdown that's been brewing since 2017.

Davis isn't waiting around for Lomachenko. Reports are swirling that TGB Promotions, which is often linked with Al Haymon and Davis, has requested the T-Mobile Arena to hold November 2 for a fight to be announced. While Davis hasn't held back from targeting his contemporaries—WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson has particularly drawn his ire in recent months—unconfirmed rumors suggest that Davis is preparing to challenge the newly crowned WBA junior welterweight champion Jose "Rayo" Valenzuela. Valenzuela earned the title after defeating Isaac "Pitbull" Cruz on August 3 by split decision.

Cruz, who lost a competitive decision to Davis in 2020, had been a top candidate for a rematch with Davis. However, Cruz’s defeat to Valenzuela made him a less appealing option, especially in the stacked 140-pound division. Cruz’s victory over a similarly overmatched Rolando Romero had already put him in the sights of every top-15 contender, including WBC champion Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, and Stevenson.

With his upset win, Valenzuela not only captured Cruz's title but also gained significant momentum after their spirited 12-round battle. This makes him a compelling foil for Davis. A Davis vs. Valenzuela fight would likely see Davis swooping in on "Rayo" while he's still riding the wave of his recent victory, with Davis potentially knocking him out and becoming a three-division champion—a distinction he would share with Lomachenko.

Whether or not this would entice Lomachenko remains to be seen. Bob Arum has confirmed that Lomachenko will return in 2025, suggesting that a showdown with Davis could be on the horizon following a potential year-long layoff. However, if Lomachenko was unwilling to face Davis in November after fighting in May, it's difficult to envision him stepping into the ring for a fight of that magnitude while dealing with ring rust.

Should Lomachenko decide to return, he might have the option to face Davis in a title unification bout at lightweight or take a gamble by attempting to become a four-division champion—if Davis manages to conquer Valenzuela this fall.

Howard's End: Two Negatives

Here's the thing, fight fans: You don’t become a big fish just because you move to a smaller pond. 

That’s the lesson Devin Haney, Demetrius Andrade, and Tevin Farmer more or less learned when they decided to sign with Eddie Hearn, and that’s the lesson Shakur Stevenson is going to learn, too.
 

Stevenson, the prodigious undefeated three-division champion, has decided to cast away his polarizing gimmick that could have made him into a superstar with the right people behind him to align with a promoter who will give his critics additional ammo by putting him in dreadful, boring mismatches.
 

When it comes to Hearn, there are two schools of thought.
 

One, Hearn is a savvy promoter whose magnetic personality and ambitions have made him essentially the biggest promoter in the UK and one of “the good ones” when it comes to promoters in the sport. Those who think he falls into this group also believe Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya fall into that same group, so he’s basically a guy who gives kickbacks for kissing his butt and telling everyone, “If you love chocolate, you’re going to love this, too.”
 

The other school of thought is that Hearn is a nepo-baby who can't help but force himself onto the public. His rise to the chairman position of Matchroom Boxing came as something his father, Matchroom Sports founder Barry, could give him to take something off his hands. Regardless of who or what he’s involved in, Hearn must find a way to get involved beyond his official capacities and has not found a camera he won’t step in front of to give an interview. If his fighters aren’t becoming stars, that’s okay, because that keeps all eyes on him like he wants it.
 

We have to remember that Hearn “started” out of seemingly nowhere when his dad gave him the brunt of the work in promoting Audley Harrison’s heavyweight title challenge of David Haye in 2010. The well-connected and charismatic Hearn would sign Anthony Joshua three years later, which proved to be a massive success that required little legwork, and he would continue to find opportunities to expand his profile in the UK.
 

That wasn’t enough for Hearn, who was determined to break normal boxing conventions and be a worldwide promoter much along the lines of industry titans like Arum and '80s-era Don King. In order to do that, Hearn sought out American talent and lured them to Matchroom Boxing in hopes of building a brand.
 

His first acquisition was a major one as he signed then-junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade in 2018 just as Andrade was entering advanced talks for a unification bout with Jermall Charlo, with hopes that he’d crash that party and have a promotional part of that fight. It didn’t happen, as the fight was canceled and Hearn had the tremendously difficult task of promoting Andrade, a task he lamented in 2022 when Andrade and Matchroom parted ways.
 

This was despite the fact that Hearn had plenty of opportunities to match Andrade with big fighters, but he didn’t. Andrade’s first, and only, big fight of his career came last year when he was bludgeoned by David Benavidez, which came after his deal with Hearn ended. 

He similarly tried to make something out of Tevin Farmer, not because he believed Farmer had star power, but because he could use Farmer as bait to lure Gervonta Davis into some sort of deal, which was the starting point of Hearn's unrealized wet dream of promoting a Tank fight that he hasn't given up on. If it already wasn't clear, that fight never materialized, and Farmer slipped into obscurity after dropping his title to Joseph Diaz 18 months after signing with Hearn.
 

Lest we forget that Hearn had Devin Haney under his wing, even promoting a few of his title defenses, but was more than happy to admit that he couldn’t get Haney the fights he was looking for. Haney would leave Hearn, become an undisputed lightweight champion, defeat Vasiliy Lomachenko, and be part of the biggest event of the year thus far in his controversial fight with Ryan Garcia. None of that would have happened with Hearn at the helm.
 

That is something fellow recent signee Jaron "Boots" Ennis is perhaps slowly beginning to realize as the heir apparent to the Terence Crawford era is without a fight or even direction just months after signing with him.
 

Now that brings us to Stevenson, who spurned a significant contract extension with Top Rank to instead sign a two-fight deal with Hearn. Stevenson refused a five-fight extension that would have earned him $15 million, citing issues with how Top Rank has handled his career up to this point, particularly alluding to an oft-mentioned notion that most of the boxing media don't talk about, that the organization doesn't go to bat for its black fighters. I'm not saying it's true, but Crawford and Floyd Mayweather Jr. don't seem to look back at their time under Top Rank very favorably when asked today.
 

While I understand that is a tremendously good contract, Stevenson is right to question Top Rank's willingness to deliver, especially as their commentary crew on ESPN has railroaded him, as well as slotting him in on a weekday for a title defense. Also, if he already doesn't believe they've done their due diligence with him, then throwing more money at the problem doesn't solve the problem. 

Who books a fight on a Thursday night? Seriously.

Now I would argue that signing with Hearn would have been a tactically stupid move for Stevenson. Hearn is nowhere near the genius he is made out to be, but his emerging reputation as boxing's rich uncle makes this situation different. A two-fight deal allows him to use Hearn’s connections and put himself in position for bigger fights after the fact, and avoid the repeated pattern we've seen where fighters are waiting on Hearn to bungle them.  

The same could also be said about Hearn’s close affiliation with streaming service DAZN. Hearn wanted everyone that could read, write, or listen to know that he was going to be the face of boxing for DAZN, using it as his vessel to fill the forthcoming void that would come as HBO and Showtime began to distance itself from sports programming. Though it was met with rightful praise almost six years ago, DAZN now has walked back all of its promises and essentially took HBOs spot with mismatched fights priced at a premium, something I’ve discussed on other platforms in the past.
 

That brings us to Hearn’s new sugar daddy in the form of Turki Alalshikh, the current Chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority, who has been hosting the woefully wasteful “Riyadh Season” pay-per-views and trying to buy entire boxing promotions in the hopes of consolidating an entire sport under his fist. 

Like DAZN, Alalshikh came to Hearn believing that he could make his project a success and showed him how much money he would be bringing to the table. Maybe somebody should have told him what to expect, but they didn't and Hearn sure as hell wasn't going to.

"I'll f****** do it again!"

For a while, things were working out as those who partnered with Alalshikh sung his praises while he doled out the cash. Those who would be so quick to criticize other promoters for low pay-per-view buys or terrible attendance wouldn’t give Alalshikh the same pleasure. 

So the pay-per-views were seldom viewed, the areas sparsely attended, and the boxing media at large said as loud as they could “It’s not them, it’s you,” in hopes of getting in his good graces. Even Ring Magazine’s Doug Fischer jokingly suggested that Alalshikh should buy the publication, though he might need some reminding about how Alalshikh gets when a journalist comes in his vicinity.
 

With recent reports likely pointing to Alalshikh potentially having to abandon his boxing pursuits due to economic concerns in Saudi Arabia, the musical chairs game of who will get their hands in his pockets next is about to end. Stevenson is already getting a chair before the music stops for good, and he might just get two before the game is over for everyone.
 

That's going to happen on the undercard of Dmitry Bivol vs. Artur Beterbiev, where he's getting a huge gimme in the form of recently defeated jr. lightweight champion Joe Cordina. The only reason Cordina is getting the fight is because William Zepeda, Alalshikh's preferred opponent for Stevenson, will be with his wife as she is nearing her due date, and it would be bad press to send a Saudi hit squad to abduct him and force him to fight Stevenson in a near-empty arena for the Saudi prince's enjoyment.
 

I have no doubt that Stevenson-Zepeda will get made. Hearn and Oscar De La Hoya are doing whatever they can to appease the Saudi prince, who is likely paying them the big bucks to do his bidding. De La Hoya has yo-yoed the Stevenson-Zepeda fight by saying he'd like to make that fight happen, but he won't unless Stevenson signs with him. He’ll do no such thing and provide zero barriers when it comes time to make that fight six months from now.
 

Or so we hope...

From there, Stevenson can knock off his best available opponent in the division and leave Hearn in the dust with his pockets that much fuller, as well as his autonomy preserved for the time being. It will also give Stevenson the extra juice he may need to get a better deal on the negotiating table when he and Davis entertain a potential superfight.
 

Something tells me that this is part of the plan for Hearn as well. Stevenson is notoriously boring and unapologetic about his technique, but he is a ratings hit in spite of it. Perhaps also understanding his own inability to cross the pond and make big fights, he's happy to get what he can from Stevenson, before waiting for the next big boxing scheme to get dropped on his lap like DAZN and the Saudi partnership.
 

Ultimately, it's a low-risk deal for both men. How rewarding it will be for them, and for boxing, is yet to be seen.

Howard's End: Keith Thurman and the Art of the Money Grab

 

I don’t really know how good of a fighter Keith Thurman is anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a time when Thurman was really good, and to say otherwise makes you blind, ignorant, and an imbecile; all the things to qualify you for a spot writing for Ring Magazine nowadays. As Thurman looks to try this boxing thing again after another long layoff against Mario Barrios, we might be left wondering what to expect, but a keen mind already knows what’s about to happen.

Thurman has been doing the media rounds lately to sell a fight so lopsided that there’s no surprise that it’s a pay-per-view. His opponent is Mario Barrios, who we last saw getting mopped up by little Gervonta Davis last summer. We will now have to pay 75 dollars to watch Thurman bop him, along with your typical garbage undercard to go along with it.

The former welterweight champion is trying to convince everyone that the fire is back, and his head is in boxing. Truth be told, this is just business as usual for Thurman, who is simply renewing his value ahead of cashing out and checking out once again in a few months time.

It’s not unlike how the WWE keeps trotting out Goldberg to win a few, then lose the big one before backing up the Brinks truck in his driveway and telling him they’ll see him in a few months.

And if you don’t think this is exactly what Thurman is doing, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. It is pretty much 2019 all over again, just with a few adjustments to make sure there’s no issue in executing the plan.

Before Thurman’s first long layoff, he stood alone atop the welterweight ranks after back-to-back wins over Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia made him a unified titlist. At the time, the only big fights Thurman could take at the time were mandatory rematches against Porter and Garcia. And just to get ahead of it, I know Errol Spence was around, but Spence didn’t win his first title until after all that happened.

That fight would have made as much sense then as a bout between Spence and Jaron Ennis makes now. Rushing the fight now would be pointless and a bad business move that neither fight would entertain until it became a bigger fight.

So Thurman was without viable options, and at the same time had the perfect opportunity to address mounting injuries and take a much-needed break from boxing. In the interim, Thurman moonlighted as a commentator for Premier Boxing Champions as whispers started coming out that Thurman wasn’t all that interested in returning to the ring.

He vacated all but the IBF title without any fuss, but things changed when PBC signed Manny Pacquiao, and he was immediately targeted for a summer fight. The lure of a major payday and a chance to unseat a legend was enough to bring Thurman back, but after nearly getting his ass kicked by Josesito Lopez and then losing to a 40-year-old Pacquiao that summer, Thurman vanished once more.

Sounds familiar, right?

There’s little doubt that Terence Crawford will be signing some sort of agreement with either Al Haymon or PBC in the near future, and Thurman is just weeks away from taking down a patsy in Barrios. With Spence tied up and Crawford’s stock as high as it’s ever been, Thurman is having his Goldberg moment to either boost Crawford’s viability as a pay-per-view attraction or beat Crawford and move on to Spence.

Barrios is actually a safer opponent than Lopez was in this scenario. The guy either can’t or doesn’t want to dodge punches, and he was worked over by Gervonta Davis despite a considerable advantage in every physical category. Thurman may not need to be 100% to look 100% with someone like Barrios, who will mop up everything thrown his way.

Now, does Thurman actually have it in him to beat Crawford and kill the Spence fight?

The 2017 version that beat Porter and Garcia certainly would have a great chance. As far as the 2022 version, just about to have his third fight in five years – the only thing he’s going to kill is his bank account.

With the welterweight division as stacked with talent as it is right now, Thurman would be an excellent addition to challenge the elite and elite-hopefuls alike. That being said, don’t expect his return to last beyond whatever summer fight he’ll appear in.

He already has one foot out the door, and he’s plenty fine walking out the rest of the way.

Five Burning Questions: The Heavyweight Division

Tyson Fury will be the man in 2022

Does Anyone Beat Tyson Fury?

The short of it is "no." Truth be told, anyone can win a fight as long as they have two free hands and a reason to be in there, but there is nobody in the heavyweight division beating Tyson Fury unless he defeats himself. Dillian Whyte won't do it, neither will Joseph Parker, and definitely not someone like Luis Ortiz. Even the winner of the Usyk/Joshua rematch matches up poorly against him. Though he faces no shortage of potential challengers, and Top Rank will ensure he gets the best opponents money can buy (though fans will get the shit end of the stick there), Fury will reign unopposed through 2022 and even 2023.

Oleksandr Usyk will face a more desperate and dangerous Anthony Joshua in rematch

 Will Anthony Joshua Redeem Himself In Usyk Rematch?

There was a point when Joshua was poised to be not just the next big thing at heavyweight, but a sure bet to become an all time great. His career trajectory suggested that as well, but he changed for the worse after a brutal brawl with Wladimir Klitschko stripped him of his confidence just as it elevated his profile. Joshua is no longer an explosive, athletic puncher and has the looks of a fighter who believes he's made of glass, which is why Oleksandr Usyk embarrassed him last year and is poised to do so again in their eventual rematch. If Joshua is really built for greatness, he must defeat Usyk convincingly lest he be written off as a hype job in the years to come.

Joe Joyce is running out of time to land a big fight

Are We A Few Years Away From Another Heavyweight Dark Age?

The heavyweight division has been restored to its former glory over the course of the last five years, and the division has plenty of intriguing fights that can be made at the top level. Short term outlook is pretty good, but it has to be said that we aren't too far removed from another lull in the division. Of the division's top fighters, Fury is in his prime but has openly discussed retirement. Joshua is damaged goods. Usyk and Wilder are nearing the wrong side of 30. Even the next notable contenders like Joe Joyce and Frank Sanchez aren't exactly making their case to carry the division. Enjoy this while it lasts.

If Trevor Bryan is America's next best heavyweight, then there's not much to look forward to

How Soon Will A New Contender Arise?

Honestly, not soon enough. Between Fury and Usyk, expect a lot of recycled contenders for the next few years unless they decide to unify. We could see a repeat of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao build up where Fury and Usyk face familiar opponents as long as they remain financially lucrative, save of course for a novelty opponent like Trevor Bryan who would be getting a shot due to a particular narrative as opposed to his skill.  There are a lot of interesting fights to be made in the division right now, but there is no clear standout of the bunch.

As long as he tones down the crazy and stays away from the champs, Deontay Wilder is primed for a big 2022

Who Is The Division's Wild Card For 2022?

If he doesn't come back insane , it's easily Deontay Wilder. He may shy away from the title scene for now, but he can easily re-establish himself as a threat by mowing down PBCs abundance of fringe contenders like he did before he ran into Fury. Wilder has a dearth of options that can re-energize any lost momentum from the Fury fights and put him right on the cusp of title contention for Usyk, or a still there bout with Joshua. Bouts with Charles Martin, Robert Helenius, Adam Kownacki and of course, Andy Ruiz, are all ready and easy to make. If he does return, doesn't act like a total idiot, and can string some big wins together, Wilder can still be a premier big man.

Luis Ortiz Survives Early Scare. KOs Charles Martin In Sixth.

 

Charles Martin (28-3-1, 25 KO) was four rounds in on the best performance of his career and had plenty to be happy about. The former heavyweight champion had an old, slow, and vulnerable target in front of him, knocking Luis Ortiz (33-2, 28 KO) down twice and well on his way to a stoppage. Ortiz looked shot and was doing nothing to suggest he could turn the tide.

From the fifth round onwards, though, things took a turn for the dramatic.

Ortiz rallied, fighting with a sense of urgency and putting forward a desperate charge that ultimately lead to a crushing stoppage of Martin in the sixth round of their heavyweight contest that aired on PBC pay-per-view. The bout was the main event of a card full of heavyweight hopefuls, yet none stood out as potential threats to the division's elite; not even Ortiz in victory.

Things were not going Ortiz's way in the early proceedings. Martin slipped a lazy jab and connected with a stiff left counter that put Ortiz on the canvas and remained in control up to the point where he floored Ortiz again with another jab in the fourth.

To his credit, Ortiz stuck to the strategy of working behind his jab in hopes that he could draw an opening, and he finally hit pay dirt in the sixth.

A booming left hand from the Cuban southpaw had Martin out on his feet and glaring at the crowd; then a follow-up barrage nearly sent him out of the ring. When Martin did go down, his left glove got tied up in the ropes and caused a temporary pause to the action as the referee tried to free him. While wrestling fans will appreciate the callback to multiple Royal Rumble finishes over the years, Martin was not revitalized when the action resumed.

Ortiz would drop Martin one more time, drawing a stoppage and preserving his chance of another meaningful heavyweight fight down the line. He looked awful though, and he's not going to magically get better before his next fight at his age unless he gets popped a third time for using banned substances.

Rest assured, there is nothing either man showed that suggests that they'd be a threat to Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, or even Anthony Joshua. For a fight that featured four knockdowns, it was incredibly dull and didn't do much to elevate either fighter at this stage of their respective careers.

"Southpaw versus southpaw is a very difficult fight. In the end, intelligence won the fight," said Ortiz.

If he's smart, he'll reach out to Andy Ruiz or Dillian Whyte if the latter can't make a fight with Fury in the coming months, take the money and call it a career.

The Bucket Breakdown: Terence Crawford vs. Kell Brook

 

Today, we’re going to break down this weekend’s WBO Welterweight title fight between boxing’s #1 pound-for-pound fighter, Terence Crawford, and former champ Kell Brook. The bout between two fighters whose careers are going in entirely opposite directions goes down on November 14 in Las Vegas.

Here are my thoughts ahead of this bout.

Does Kell Brook Have A Chance?

 

Kell Brook might be shit out of luck this weekend

 

Last week, Terence Crawford was a 21-to-1 favorite to win. Today, he’s at 30-to-1. There’s no faith in Brook this weekend and for good reason. Five years ago, things started happening to him that whittled him down and left him washed up.

He couldn’t make 147, so he went up to 160 to get one side of his face broken by Gennadiy Golovkin. He followed that up by moving back down in weight to get the other side of his face broken by Errol Spence.

After that fight, he started talking about how he was mentally and physically tired from those setbacks and considered calling it quits. He didn’t, instead coming back at 154, but the work he’s done from Spence to now hasn’t been impressive.

On top of that, the man is going back down in weight again for a payday against a certifiable killer. I have to emphasize that because people tend to forget how ruthless Terence Crawford can be when he smells blood in the water. He’s Jaws. He’s the Predator. He’s the Candyman. 

Back when Brook was in his prime and had some tread on his tires, he maybe could make it to the end. Now, it’s just a matter of time before Crawford dings him with something, and then he’ll beat him until either he drops him or his corner gets nauseous watching what’s going on in there.

I honestly don’t see this going beyond eight rounds.

Is This A No-Win Situation For Terence Crawford?

Crawford has little to gain in victory

As good as Crawford is, he’s still a fighter who relies on a promoter to find him work. He can talk about his hit list all he wants, but fights like this are a result of his long term deal with Top Rank. Crawford can either fight the best fighters Top Rank has on staff or the best of what’s left. Brook is clearly the latter.

We just saw Devin Haney turn in a comprehensively dominant performance against Yuriorkis Gamboa that saw him take a hit to his marketability. The big reason for that was because, despite Haney’s technical prowess, he was never at a point where he was threatening a stoppage against his overmatched foe. 

Crawford doesn’t sit back to admire his work. If he can get a fighter out of there, he will. I don’t expect he’ll struggle much with Brook, but I do believe that many will see a drawn out fight as a referendum on Crawford. He’s not getting the fights we need to see to determine how good he is at 147, but that’s not his fault.

Can Crawford Get A Big Fight With Top Rank?

Top Rank won't get Crawford the big fights

A big knock on Crawford has been his competition since moving up to 147, especially as his contemporaries are seemingly involved in one captivating fight after another. Fans are growing restless of wanting to see Crawford against the likes of Errol Spence, Keith Thurman or Manny Pacquiao, but we can’t ignore Top Rank’s inability to work with PBC.

Crawford can only fight the guys put in front of him, and he only really loses if he loses in the ring. It really comes down to how hard Crawford is pushing his promoter to get the work done. Mikey Garcia had a similar predicament with Top Rank to the point where he gave up two years of his prime to fight Bob Arum in court for his release. Garcia turned that into the biggest paydays of his career.

So too did Floyd Mayweather, and Oscar De La Hoya, and recently, Canelo Alvarez. The problem with Crawford is that he is not a marketable fighter like those previously mentioned. I also think that despite his pining for a big fight, he’s happy with the state of his career and how it’s been handled. Then again, we don’t know what we don’t know.

Howard's End: The Delirious Days of Deontay Wilder

I'M INSAAAAAAANE!

 

 

Ernest Hemingway once said that “A man can be destroyed but never defeated.” No truer words have been spoken, especially we’re seeing it unfold in front of our very eyes as Deontay Wilder seems to have lost his damn mind.


The former WBC heavyweight champion has come completely undone in the months following his KO loss to Tyson Fury. In just nine months, Wilder has given a plethora of bullshit excuses ranging from:

 

• Cosplaying as The Shredder took away his legs.

• Mark Breland poisoned him.

• After poising him, Mark Breland threw in the towel.

• Kenny Bayless is a drunk.

• Something about Andre Dirrell. I forget.

• Fury, a 270 pound man, loaded his gloves.

All of this has come at a time when Wilder is trying, at the same time, to force a third fight with the man who has broken his mind and his spirit. 

I’m not sure what has caused Wilder to take this loss so seriously like he has, but it isn’t like we’ve seen this before. For all the ballyhoo about how Wilder was the hardest punching champion in the history of all things, it didn’t require a nuclear-powered telescope to see that this disaster was on the horizon.

Wilder has always been a fundamentally compromised champion with a meme worthy technique. By some miracle he took home a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics, something that is easy to forget when watching him in the ring. His overly wide stance, sloppy footwork and bewildering lack of upper body movement would doom him the moment he fought an elite opponent. 

Oh, and his title reign? That came after being matched against a set of opponents so awful that you would swear the mob was running things in the heavyweight division again. Things as a reigning champion didn’t exactly look much better. 

 

As it stands now, Wilder’s signature wins are Bermane Stiverne, Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz. Hardly Hall of Fame material, but Arturo Gatti and Ray Mancini got in, so what do I know?

The whole time this was going on, Wilder was being built up as this indestructible machine that was going to take over the sport. He made stupid statements with impunity, like wanting to “catch a body” and somehow managed to dodge a bullet with this...uh, disturbing twerking video? 

Following the Fury loss, Wilder is showing the same tell-tale signs of a fighter who bought in on all the hype his team was selling to the public. Once reality came crashing down on him as he was mangled and embarrassed by a man who was not phased by his marketing, his psyche crumbled as his aura of invincibility vanished.

What we’re seeing now is the ramblings and ravings of a man that has been facing his biggest defeat in a Groundhog’s Day scenario. Wilder is not putting the loss behind him, but rather letting it consume him and will no doubt affect him when he returns to the ring. When the Fury fight does happen, he’ll collapse under the weight of Fury’s mind games and potentially be driven further into this alternate reality he’s created for himself. Not to mention, he'll be beaten into a delicious paste.

I don’t think there is any coming back from this for Wilder. It’s clear that all the years of puffing up his chest with hype put him in a horrible position for any setback he’d occur. Speaking in a historical context, we’ve seen that when fighters with “the world is mine” complex get a dose of humbling reality, the long-term outlook isn’t that great. 

While many will get a kick out of Wilder’s baseless claims, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more soon, these are the acts of a broken man. Considering he’s on the wrong side of his prime and not of the right mind, there’s a solid chance that Wilder may never pick up the pieces of his damaged psyche. If he can’t, then maybe it’s time to step away from the sport while he has some semblance of dignity left. 

And yes, I’m giving that twerking video (again, ugh) a pass.