‘I’d be concerned about him fighting’ – Boxing legends including Tyson Fury urge Deontay Wilder to QUIT before comeback
DEONTAY WILDER has been urged to hang up his gloves just a month before his ring return.
The former long-reigning WBC heavyweight champion will bid to get back to winning ways on June 27 in a rebuild fight against Tyrrell Herndon.
Wilder, 39, will enter the bout on the back of four defeats in his last five outings, with three of those losses being brutal knockouts to Tyson Fury and Zhilei Zhang.
The American has looked like a shell of the fighter who struck fear into the hearts of heavyweights during his pomp, so much so that a litany of boxing icons, Fury included, have urged him to call it a day.
During an appearance on the Pound 4 Pound podcast with former UFC champs Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo, he said: “I’d like to see poor old Deontay retire from boxing.
“When I beat Wilder, he was 44 and 0, with 43 KOs, and he KO’d the guy who went the distance with him in the rematch, so that means he knocked out every single person he ever faced. 44 people.
“Obviously, he lost the three fights to me and since that third trilogy, we took a lot of lot of years off each other’s lives.
“That war, which ended in the 11th round by knockout, that took a lot out of our tanks.
“Between me and Wilder in that trilogy there was 10 knockdowns. It takes a lot out of a fighter.
“Even when he’s come back and had a couple of fights since, he’s only a shadow of his former glory.
“The only thing left that remains the same about Deontay is his name.”
Legendary boxing coach Teddy Atlas, who used to train Mike Tyson, shares the same view as Fury.
Atlas told Slingo: “The last thing to go, George Foreman showed, is that the last thing to go with a fighter is power.
“As long as you have power, you’ve got a shot.
“But the way he’s looked, the punishment he took against Zhilei Zhang.
“Wilder took a lot of punishment in his last few fights.
“And the way he took it, how clean he got hit, and how he reacted to it, just as a human being.
“Forget trainer, promoter, anything, just as a human being, I’d be concerned about him fighting again.”
Wilder and his team are hoping a win over Herndon will kick-start an unlikely run to a world title, with head coach Malik Scott saying: “He’s still got that urge to become champion, because he’s a champion at heart.
“He’s on the second half of his career, he’s filthy rich.
“He wants to make another run at the heavyweight championship of the world.”