‘I’ve always thought he was mentally weak’: Deontay Wilder still questions Anthony Joshua’s mental fortitude
Deontay Wilder says hopefully Anthony Joshua has learned lessons from his losses that motivates him to want a fight between them.
As Deontay Wilder gets ready for his upcoming fight on a big card in Saudi Arabia, he talks to iFL TV about his training camp, his thoughts on facing Joseph Parker, and what he thinks of Anthony Joshua as they continue to build towards a future showdown. Check out some of what he had to say below.
Wilder on how his training camp has been going
“This training camp has been very intense, but very pleasant. It’s been very enjoyable...I’m just grateful to have so many individuals around me that have the same goal as I, and that’s to unify the division. And by doing that we have to work hard, we have to train hard to get that done, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.
“We’ve been putting in the work overboard, overtime, because this has been a short camp and we knew this was gonna be a short camp. And being a short camp you have to stack it in as if it were a full camp and that’s what we’ve been doing and I’ve been looking spectacular. So I look forward to translating what I’ve been doing here into the ring come December 23.”
On if he’ll have ring rust considering he’s only fought less than a round over the last year while Joseph Parker has had three fights in that same time
“It don’t play a factor into it. I can play a factor, but it all depends how you look at it. Although he had three fights, who were those fighters and what kind of talent did they bring to him? Because you can have three easy fights that don’t bring nothing to you.
“Did those three fights make him better than what he was before? And that is the question. If the (answer) is no, then it doesn’t matter...that don’t mean nothing to me. When you’re dealing with the most dangerous fighter in boxing history, the hardest puncher in boxing history, you need 10 fights ahead of him to get ready because when I come, I come with bad intentions.”
On Parker being fully confident he can knock him out
“It fuels my fire. And if they feel this way then why they didn’t do this years ago when they had the belt? I guess they didn’t feel that way when they had the belt. If you’re a champion and you didn’t feel this way with the belt, you’re not going to feel this way without the belt, trust me.
“He has to say the right things but it’s going to be a different story when he has to get face-to-face in the ring with me. I guarantee you that.”
On Otto Wallin saying Anthony Joshua is mentally weak and if he agrees
“I’ve always thought Joshua was mentally weak, this has not just started. If you go back to my previous interviews and hear me talk about Joshua, I’ve always thought he had a very weak mentality...especially when it comes to fighting me. It’s no secret — I mean a lot of things have already come out with World Boxing News about why that fight didn’t happen, when he asked for $50M why that didn’t happen.
“...he had a lot of lessons to be presented to him so hopefully he have grasped all those lessons and laid them all out on the table and be able to turn that into blessings so that when it do come time for us to fight that he have all the motivation and confidence to do what he have to do no matter what, even after this fight — no matter what happens.”