Deontay Wilder’s denial and why you should never blame a boxer for their excuses

Wilder’s excuses for losing a rematch with Tyson Fury have grown increasingly fanciful, writes Luke Brown. But that doesn't mean we should ridicule them

Deontay Wilder, in the costume he would later blame his defeat on (Getty)

Breaking news: Deontay Wilder still believes he was desperately unfortunate to lose his WBC heavyweight world championship to Tyson Fury in a fight so emphatically one-sided it was a very real surprise that it stretched into seven rounds.

“There are a lot of things that I do not even want to talk about at this moment in time,” a cryptic Wilder said on the PBC podcast this week, immediately before doing just that.

“People that know boxing that wasn’t Deontay Wilder, I was a zombie that night.