By Allan Fox: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) has seen 3 of his opponents drop out of fights against him recently due to them testing positive for banned drugs. The latest is Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs), who was scheduled to fight him on November the 4th on Showtime Championship Boxing.
Wilder, 31, is starting to show signs of a mental meltdown over yet another one of his opponents testing positive for banned drugs. But instead of seeing it as something that happens occasionally in boxing, Wilder appears to be viewing it as a never-ending occurrence. Wilder sounds almost paranoid about the subject of his opponents testing positive for PEDS. What would be a tragedy is if Wilder starts suspecting everyone he faces of using PEDs from this point on in his career. Wilder sounds incredibly jaded from his recent experiences with his opponents testing positive.
Last Friday, Wilder was even talking retirement over Ortiz’s positive drug test. Some boxing fans think Wilder is having a mental meltdown over this issue. Wilder has taken massive criticism for the level of the opposition he’s fought while defending his WBC heavyweight title. Since winning the belt 2 years ago, Wilder has defended it 5 times against very weak opposition. When Wilder finally picked out a good opponent in Ortiz, he tests positive for banned drugs. Wilder could very easily rectify this by signing to fight Dillian Whyte as the replacement for Ortiz. The boxing public would respect Wilder for facing Whyte, who might even be a better fighter than the 38-year-old Ortiz at this point.
Wilder says he’s really looking forward to his clash with British heavyweight Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) next year, but he says it would be the story of his life if he tested positive too. Things have been going so bad for the 6’7” Wilder, it would be par for the course if Joshua tested positive too for PEDs, and that would ruin his big fight that he’s been looking forward to well over a year.
Joshua has never tested positive for PEDs in the pros or the amateur ranks, so he’s going for him. Ortiz has tested positive 3 years ago in 2014. It shouldn’t have come to a complete surprise to Wilder that Ortiz would test positive on a second occasion.
”We have Wilder vs. Joshua to look forward to, but wouldn’t it be the story of my life if he end up getting pop too? I’m just saying,” said Wilder on his Instagram.
A loss Joshua to his IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs) would be just as bad as him testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. Joshua, 27, is far from unbeatable, as we saw in his recent fight against Wladimir Klitschko on April 29. For all intents and purposes, Joshua should have lost that fight. If Wladimir showed some backbone by going after Joshua when he was hurt and completely exhausted in rounds 6 through 9, the victory would have been his.
Pulev, 36, isn’t in the same category as Klitschko in the power and talent department, but he’s big enough at 6’4 ½” to put Joshua down for the count of he hits him cleanly with one of his overhand rights. If Wladimir shook something loose when he knocked Joshua down in the 6th, Pulev could take advantage of that and end the fight. Deontay needs to think about that potential. If Joshua loses to Pulev, then Wilder will probably need to wait another 2 years before he gets a fight against him. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn will want to rebuild his fighter’s shattered confidence by hitting the reset button on his career in hopes of fixing the problem that led to him losing.
Wilder sees himself as the most feared man in the sport of boxing today.
”I have officially past the Mike Tyson era of fear,” said Wilder on his Instagram. ”I am the most feared man in boxing, that has never been seen in history. ITS SO CRAZY HOW THE SO CALLED BEST AND CONTENDERS OF THE SPORT HAVE TO GET REPORTED USING P.E.Ds BEFORE FACING ME, BUT THE MOST FUNNIEST OF ALL I GET THE BLAME FOR GROWN [bleep] MEN MAKING DUMB [expletive] DECISION JUST TO FACE THEIR FEARS!”
Deontay needs to keep busy and get the best fights possible. He still plans on fighting on the November 4 card, but it might be against Bermane Stiverne if the World Boxing Council doesn’t let Ortiz, 38, take the fight with him as scheduled. It’s a long shot that the Cuban amateur star Ortiz will be granted permission to still face Wilder, no matter how much he would like for that fight to still take place.
Ortiz would have been the first time in Wilder’s 2-year reign as the WBC champion that he stepped it up against a good heavyweight. You can’t count Alexander Povetkin as Wilder showing courage, because the WBC ordered him to face the Russian. Povetkin was Wilder’s mandatory challenger at the time. Wilder’s resume as a pro is paper thin when it comes to talented opponents. The only arguably good fighter Wilder has faced thus far was Stiverne, who wasn’t 100 percent physically on the night of the fight due to a dehydration problem he was experiencing.