Simon Jordan fires back at Deontay Wilder: “He threatened to punch me in the face”

Simon Jordan delivered a pointed response after Deontay Wilder walked out of a talkSPORT interview, defending his questioning and describing the encounter as a breakdown.

Jordan returned to the network Thursday and explained that the interview centered on Wilder’s past accusation toward Tyson Fury. “He’s mentioned Tyson Fury, he’s called him a cheat, so I think it is entirely appropriate to ask him to qualify for what he said,” Jordan told Jim White, presenting the question as routine to a heavyweight with such global reach.

Fury Claim Pressed

Jordan said resistance appeared the moment the topic came up. “He didn’t want to talk about it, so my initial reaction was ‘Well, you are going to’, which to some extent could be considered provocative, because if I were in his shoes, I would have probably said ‘No, I’m not’, and that is what he said.”

The broadcaster added that the exchange quickly heated up. “It then escalated from there, and he wanted to make it about something completely different. He wanted to make it about a race thing, where he is a black man, and he has been oppressed.”

Jordan stressed that he sought clarification, not allegiance with Fury. “But I wasn’t saying that I believed Fury over him, I was asking him to explain his viewpoint, which he said to other people about why Fury had cheated.”

Studio Control Slips

Jordan described discomfort as the segment unraveled. “At the time, I was a little bit embarrassed because I thought the show was coming off the rails, and Deontay Wilder is a big name.”

He continued with a blunt account of his internal reaction. “So I’m sat there, a bit embarrassed by it, and then I thought ‘He’s a bit of a t**’, and then I thought ‘Is he on drugs or something? Or is this theatrics?’ And then I came to the conclusion that he’s not right, he’s not well, and all this ayahuasca stuff probably has worked in reverse. It is supposed to make you calm and zen-like.”

Jordan rejected any suggestion that the moment was about getting this reaction from Wilder. “I didn’t provoke Deontay Wilder by asking him a question that he didn’t want to answer. I asked him a question about something he said, not something I was trying to engineer into clickbait.”

Threat Allegation Raised

Jordan said the unseen portion carried sharper edges. “He called Tyson Fury a cheat. He’s sitting in England. Tyson Fury is a legend in some people’s minds here, so I thought it wasn’t unreasonable. And he didn’t like it, and he can’t answer it, so he gets all agitated and upset about it.”

He then outlined what he claims followed. “He turns it into a debate about oppression. There is loads more that you didn’t see. He threatened to punch me in the face and talked about lynching, and god knows what else. That looks like a man who’s struggling with things because there was no reason for that reaction. There was no provocation, there was no incitement.”

Jordan closed by addressing editorial direction. “I wasn’t told not to ask the question. It was on the schedule from the producer. Perhaps I could have not said, ‘Oh, you’re going to answer it,’ and perhaps I could have phrased it slightly differently, but the reality is his behaviour disappointed me, because I was looking forward to meeting him.”

Public confrontations of this kind can complicate future broadcast relationships in a division where reliability still carries weight.