By Charles Brun: Trainer Malik Scott is angry about the negotiations between his fighter Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua stalling out recently.
Naturally, Malik is upset with the time that the former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) wasted and the inactivity that he’s head. Wilder has fought only one round in the last two years since 2021, destroying his former sparring partner Robert Helenius by a first-round knockout last year in October.
Now, it looks like Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) will fight a lower-level opponent in December and then wait on a fight with Tyson Fury in 2024.
Joshua isn’t expected to take the risky fight with Wilder for fear of wrecking his chances of getting loads of cash fighting Fury. Although AJ is filthy rich, with a net worth conservatively estimated at $80 million, he’s still quite interested in hauling in more of the abundance.
The way to do that is to avoid Deontay taking on one or two vets while waiting for Fury to get freed up with his fights.
They were hoping to fight in Saudi Arabia in a big-money fight, but deal never came through. The Saudis chose to put on two of Tyson Fury’s fights against non-boxer Francis Ngannou in a crossover/celebrity match and unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
You can’t blame the Saudis for turning their noses up on the idea of staging the Joshua vs. Wilder fight in their country because AJ has looked faint-hearted since he was knocked out four years ago by Andy Ruiz Jr.
At this stage of his career, Joshua looks like a soldier suffering battle fatigue from having been at the front lines for too long. He’s not who he once was, and he’s NOT going to become that person again, no matter how many trainers he rifles through, trying to find himself.
Joshua has the hallmark signs of a soldier with combat stress, hesitating and looking uncertain about whether to pull the trigger. He’s become utterly useless on the battlefield.
Wilder’s trainer hopping mad
“The only update I have on that is this we were scheduled for January. A month later, Usyk and Fury signed a contract to fight each other, and now the dialog about Deontay and Anthony Joshua is slowly disappearing,” said trainer Malik Scott to Fight Hub TV, talking about the negotiations for a mega-fight between Anthony Joshua & Deontay Wilder evaporating.
“This is insane, it’s disgusting. What’s going on? Business is going on in boxing, and to me, business is horrible in boxing. From some sort of standpoint, the good thing is when these guys do fight, they get good revenue, but the weight in-between time is just like [long].”
It would be a good idea for Malik & Wilder to move along and forget about Joshua because that fight is no longer happening. It will eventually happen after Joshua fights Fury two or three times in business-level fights, but by the time Deontay gets to AJ, he’ll be null & void, just a jittery wreck.
“It’s unfortunate, and it’s frustrating for a head trainer; it’s frustrating for somebody who’s compassionate about a fighter like I’m compassionate about Deontay,” Scott said. “I want the best for him, and my wanting the best for him includes his activity.”
Instead of wasting time waiting on Joshua, Wilder needs to get active, fighting three times a year, beginning with Andy Ruiz Jr. If Deontay can negotiate that fight, it’ll make good money and create interest for some bigger match-ups.
The four heavyweight titles will likely be fragmented soon after Fury captures them and vacates the belts as he heads into retirement. Wilder can then go after one of the straps, and he would have an excellent chance of capturing it.
Deontay has lost interest
“I know what he could do to these guys in the ring. I love people to see Deontay, but the business sometimes turns him off so much that he kind of distances himself from boxing because, over time, the business, boxing, becomes disgusting,” said Malik.
“He just distances himself, but it’s frustrating. He’ll be back soon because training every day at least at least four or five times a week, training with me, training at home, wherever it is, he’s training.”
Wilder has made the same mistake that Ruiz has by becoming inactive after a disappointing defeat. Like Ruiz, Wilder is loaded with dough, with a huge net worth of $30 million. If Wilder had stayed active after his loss to Fury in 2021, he would have fought at least six times since then instead of just once.
“If you look at his body, he’s still in great shape, the power doesn’t go anywhere, and his fundamentals are never going to go nowhere because I’m a fundamental King, and I’m always making sure I do my job as a head trainer,” said Malik.
“It’s tough to stay contained, and that’s why I speak the way I speak about him because I’m so compassionate about not just him but his career as well,” said Malik.
