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Deontay Wilder Says Anthony Joshua’s Career Was Created

Deontay Wilder is a few weeks out from his return to the ring against Robert Helenius on October 15th, live from the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York, which will be shown world-wide, live on pay-per-view, and Wilder has some words for the former two-time world champion Anthony Joshua:

“The things I’ve been saying before, many things I’ve been saying before. They made Anthony Joshua. They made him. This has nothing to do with — ‘oh he don’t like him’ — nah it ain’t that, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t like him in a business sense. As a person, Anthony Joshua as a man, as a person, I don’t have nothing that I dislike as a person — but as a business man, in this business? I don’t like him at all. I don’t like that antics of business and how they conduct business because this is a gladiator business. Again, personally, I have nothing against him. Personally, I don’t know him as a man,” said Deontay Wilder to Brian Custer’s tremendous podcast The Last Stand Podcast. “As far as business is concerned, I don’t care nothing for him. But they made him. From the Olympics to the pro rankings. You know that. Business is business. We’re born to do it. Not made it. For me, a lot of people agree they gave him, even with the Olympics they gave him that medal. With these belts, they bought a lot of these belts. There’s nothing wrong with that because a lot of people buy certain positions, certain things, whatever. So if you have the money or whatever then go do it. But I think the way they move him and prepared him for certain moments that he was not ready for.”

Wilder speaks to something I have felt as well entitlement, is a big part of the Anthony Joshua story. Joshua makes a ton of money, and looks the part of a heavyweight champion, but has had very few fights in which the odds were stacked against - if ever. It seems as though Joshua always has the leverage based on the amount of money he makes, so when Andy Ruiz Jr. knocked him out, or Oleksandr Usyk beat him twice, it felt that much more impressive since it felt like they didn’t just beat a fighter, they overcame a system.

Once thought of as a mega-fight for all the marbles in the heavyweight division, Wilder vs. Joshua might now be a super-fight that sees the loser’s career in limbo - as at the advent of DAZN, it was a fight that saw lofty numbers being floated around for the type of capital being put into it.

Now in 2022, it is exciting that with both fighters mentioning each other, we seemingly will inevitably get this bout.

Boxing is best when unanswered hypothetical questions get answered, and hopefully we get the fight between Anthony Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder that lets the fighters answer the question.