by Kevin Iole
Boxing
Yet another mega-fight down the drain as Deontay Wilder shows little in wide loss to Joseph Parker
Sometimes in boxing, the end comes overnight, so quickly that we don't even notice it. A fighter can only take so many punches before the body says no more. And when the legs go, too, it's even bigger trouble.
We might have missed the signs a year ago because of the blistering right hand Deontay Wilder laid on Robert Helenius just over two minutes into their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Wilder landed a right to the nose as he was backing up and Helenius went down like he was hit with a cannonball.
And so when Wilder came back 14 months later on Saturday to face ex-WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, no one really brought up the back-to-back beatings Wilder had taken from Tyson Fury. Wilder is the ultimate warrior, and as many times as Fury knocked him down, he kept getting back up to return to the battle.
But that wasn't the same guy in the ring with Parker on Saturday who first met Fury in Los Angeles on Dec. 1, 2018. One of the greatest punchers in boxing history, Wilder didn't throw nearly enough Saturday to cause Parker any difficulties. The only clue that the punch stats were not his golf scorecard was the zero in the first. Golfers can't make a zero, and while it's difficult for a boxer to land zero punches in a three-minute round, Wilder showed it could be done.
Wilder's punches landed by round Saturday, tracked by CompuBox, went like this:
0-2-4-5-1-4-3-3-2-6-4-5
That type of punch output will lead to scores against of 120-108, 118-111 and 118-110, which is precisely what happened to Wilder Saturday in the co-main event of the "Day of Reckoning" card in Riyadh. There was almost unanimous agreement that Parker, the former WBO heavyweight champion, had scored the biggest win of his career, but he wasn't close to the biggest story on Saturday.
That was either Anthony Joshua, who pounded out a fifth-round TKO of Otto Wallin in the main event that was far more reminiscent of the killer he once was than the lost soul who has struggled through the last few years.
"He's back!" promoter Eddie Hearn proclaimed of Joshua. "He's back."
Or, the story of the night could have been Wilder, who was mystifyingly unaggressive. He's a guy who doesn't have the skills to box circles around anyone, or even box on even terms with the greats in his division. But he won nearly every time out with a combination of fast hands, aggressiveness, courage and great torque that created perhaps the most fearsome punching power in boxing history. That power was seemingly gone on Saturday, though, as Parker was never really threatened.
Wilder may have been showing remnants from the Feb. 22, 2020, and Oct. 9, 2021, bouts in Las Vegas against Fury. Wilder lost those by seventh- and 11th-round TKO.
Parker won the WBO title by taking a majority decision from Andy Ruiz in 2016 and then successfully defended it twice before losing it to Joshua in a unification bout on March 31, 2018, in Cardiff, Wales. But there was little question his win over Wilder, particularly given the way he accomplished it, was the biggest of his career.
Asked if beating Wilder was bigger than winning the title, Parker said, "This was massive. This was the toughest opponent I've faced."
Wilder just never got out of second gear offensively, and he was rocked a few times by the over-the-top rights Parker would throw as he cut the distance and got inside.
Wilder delivered a mixed message afterward. He said he thought he'd done enough to win, which was a stunning comment, but he didn't rule out retirement. It's tough to get a fighter to cogently discuss the future in a circumstance like that, after a disappointing loss, but Wilder did crack the door on retirement.
He admitted that inactivity may have bothered him, and conceded he could have been distracted by the talk of a fight with Joshua in March had both won Saturday.
DAZN's Chris Mannix broached retirement directly with him.
"At 38, do you still want to be in this game?" Mannix asked. "Do you want to rebuild? How do you want to approach your career?"
Wilder could have been dismissive of the notion, but he was not.
"We'll see what happens," he said. "We have a little bit more left, but I've done a great job managing my money and investing. I'm a happy fighter, you know what I'm saying? We'll go home and leave and spread love to the family and all our loved ones, and on to the next. I'm a warrior, so I'll be back soon.
"If not, then it's been enjoyment, it's been a pleasure and I appreciate everybody for the love and the support they've been giving me over the years."
Joshua was getting a lot of love after his win, though he had to know that he'd lost a huge payday against Wilder. He's likely to face Filip Hrgovic, who stopped Mark De Mori in the first on Saturday, in his next outing. That won't be a big-money, high-profile bout like the one against Wilder would be, but it will position him for the IBF title.
He got in front of Wallin Saturday and just fired hard punches at him and by the end, Wallin’s nose was broken, his eye was swelling and he was walking steadily to his corner. Trainer Joey Gamache did the right thing by stopping it and not subjecting Wallin to any more unnecessary punishment.
If Wilder chooses to fight, he could potentially slug his way back into a position to fight Joshua, but let's be honest: It's highly unlikely. Consider this: Fury, the WBC champion, and Oleksandr Usyk, the IBF-WBA-WBO champion, will fight for the undisputed title on Feb. 17. They are then expected to have a rematch. After that, Joshua might be in line to fight the survivor of that, either a third bout with Usyk or the long-awaited bout with Fury.
That will push things into sometime in 2025 when Wilder will be closing in on his 40th birthday. He's lost three of his last four now and has plenty of money, so he doesn't need to keep pushing. His place in history is secure. So if Wilder can't get a title fight, what is the point of going forward?
If Joshua and Wilder don't fight, it's a loss for the sport. Of course, the fight would have been better five years ago, when it should have been made but the politics and the ridiculous business decisions made in boxing sabotaged it.
Fans were cheated of what could have been a legendary night.
Hopefully, Saudi Arabia's big-money interest in this sport will help prevent such issues in the future.
Wilder has to go home and think a lot about what he wants to do next. And if he retires, he's got to be satisfied with his career and a spot in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Joshua will likely have a spot reserved for him in Canastota, N.Y., reserved for him, too, but as he showed in the ring on Saturday, he still has plenty of work to do and the ability to add to that resume.