By Jim Maltzman: If you were wondering what former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder has been doing with his life since being dethroned by Tyson Fury last year, it appears that he’s been enjoying his massive $30 million fortune.
Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) took to social media on Sunday to show a photo of himself laying back on a beautiful sofa with a large bottle of wine, a gold catch, and a pistol in front of him. He then let his followers know that he has “99 problems but a King is still Rich.”
The message that the 35-year-old Deontay is sending to his followers is that even though things could be better for him, he’s still rich and happy.
It’s nice that Wilder is enjoying his riches, but he’s going to have to get off the couch and get back to work if he wants to save his career.
You can give the 6’7″ Wilder a partial pass for being inactive for the last 13 months due to the pandemic, but if he loses another year, he could be throwing away his career.
The money that Wilder is losing by being inactive is tremendous, and I don’t think he understands fully how much he’s losing.
During the last year, Wilder could have fought two more times, and his net worth would likely be twice what it is now at $60 million. It’s interesting how fighters are willing to throw away money by not fighting.
If you told them to go make a fire in their front yard and burn millions, they would think you’re looney. The reality is, being inactive the way Wilder is, it’s costing him millions that he could be made by fighting these heavyweights:
- Dillian Whyte
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Alexander Povetkin
- Filip Hrgovic
If Wilder doesn’t get the rematch with Fury, he should focus on facing the winner of the April 24th fight between Andy Ruiz Jr and Chris Arreola. There would be a lot of money to be made for Wilder facing Ruz Jr on pay-per-view.
Wilder needs to speak up and not let these potential fights slip through his fingers the way he let his trilogy match with Fury elude him. It would be better to take the biggest fight possible and stop pointing fingers to try and explain away why he lost that fight.
Wilder obviously has been trying to make sense of what happened to him against Fury, but it’s easy to see. He wasn’t ready for that fight, and there’s nothing he can do about it now. Wilder might not ever get another fight with Fury, and if that’s the case, he needs to learn from the loss.
Don’t wear heavy ring walk outfits, and expect your opponent to try anything he can to win. We saw that Fury was willing to go to war, but Wilder wasn’t.
Wilder was supposed to have been fighting a trilogy match with Tyson Fury, but for some reason, the fight didn’t get made.
Some believe it was the networks that got in the way of it, while others see it as a case of Wilder not being able to get mentally engaged to motivate himself to break out of the inertia that has taken hold of him since his loss to Fury.
Sometimes it’s hard for fighters to get back training camp to get their careers going again when they’ve been sitting inactive for eight to twelve months. Wilder might be one of those guys.
Wilder’s failure to get the rematch done with Fury in a timely fashion has arguably hurt him because now ‘The Gypsy King’ is saying that the rematch clause expired, and he no longer has to fight Deontay. Team Wilder’s management is still trying to get the fight with Fury going, but it’s not looking good.
That would have been a huge payday for Wilder, and it would have given him the chance to try and avenge his loss. Fury is saying he won’t ever fight Wilder now because of the things he said about him in the aftermath of the fight, which is crazy because that’s going to hurt Fury as well.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, Fury is an example of that. For normal boxing fans, it’s impossible to imagine a fighter walking away from millions the way Fury is doing with Wilder, but he’s already wealthy about to increase his fortune with his two fights against Anthony Joshua in 2021.
Still, the great robber barons of the past would never walk from money the way that Fury and Wilder are doing. They were motivated to work as hard as possible and not pass up on opportunities to increase their wealth.
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