Plenty of people in the boxing world have been having their say about whether or not Deontay Wilder should hang up the gloves.
For many years, American banger ‘The Bronze Bomber’ had a case as the most exciting fighter in the division. He won the WBC title by beating Bermaine Stiverne in 2015 and defended it several times against the likes of Luis Ortiz, Eric Molina, Chris Areola and Gerald Washington.
He then came up against Brit Tyson Fury in December 2018 and fought to a draw. The pair battled it out twice more in 2020 and 2021 and both times Wilder was stopped.
Since then he has fought just three times in three years. A first-round stoppage over Robert Helenius sent a warning to the division, but it was followed by a flat performance against Joseph Parker in Saudi Arabia in which he struggled to pull the trigger on his famous right hand. At the conclusion of 12 rounds, he lost a wide points decision.
On June 1, Wilder returned to Saudi Arabia, this time against Zhilei Zhang who went one better than Parker and stopped him in the fifth round.
Speaking to iFLTV, current number one heavyweight contender Martin Bakole made his views clear about Wilder’s future saying he should ‘retire now.’
“100% [he should retire], sorry, I saw his mum and himself say if he lost the fight he would retire so I would advise him to retire now. He’s done well in boxing. especially for American boxing, but you can’t take punishment like that.
Everyone knows his weakness now. He’s too small now, he lost more weight, he’s not the Deontay Wilder we know five years back so my advice is for him to retire.”
Facing criticism after the fight, Wilder’s coach Malik Scott recently discussed what went wrong and confirmed he would be by his fighter’s side no matter the next move.
Bakole. returns to the ring on August 3 to face undefeated up-and-comer Jared Anderson.
