They'd been playing Get Your Wings on the road for a year and had become better players - different. Īccording to Douglas, "Aerosmith was a different band when we started the third album. In the liner notes to the 1993 reissue of Greatest Hits, it was said by an unnamed member of the group that they "nailed" the album. “It’s rare that we get trilogies like this, and I truly believe this one is going down in history.For Aerosmith's previous album, Get Your Wings, the band began working with record producer Jack Douglas, who co-produced that album with Ray Colcord. “Saturday night is going to be a different fight,” Wilder said. While promoting the fight earlier this summer, Wilder basically refused to speak at his own news conference - and then engaged in a six-minute staredown with Fury during the ceremonial faceoff.Īnd in their final news conference Wednesday, promoters wouldn't allow Wilder and Fury to face off for fear of a brawl breaking out. “It was really a blessing in disguise.”Īlthough he is coming off months of dedicated training, Wilder is still a wild card - which fits this matchup just fine, since Fury isn't exactly a conventional human being himself. “I needed everything that happened in that (second) fight,” Wilder said. Those three months of training could prove important for Wilder, who has taken a more mature perspective on the loss in recent interviews. “It’s very violent.”Īfter Wilder's rematch clause and an arbitrator's ruling forced Fury to drop out of a planned summer matchup with fellow British champion Anthony Joshua, the trilogy bout was delayed from July to October by a COVID-19 outbreak in Fury's camp. “My energy is like my mind,” Wilder said. On Wednesday, Wilder said he still believes everything he claimed about the loss, and he called Breland “a disloyal trainer." Scott has rededicated Wilder to fundamentals of movement and punching, with the belief Wilder can overcome Fury's technical precision with a practical application of his fighter's physical strengths.īut every fight for Wilder is in the head, and it's still unclear what kind of shape he's in mentally after his wild excuse-making binge in 2020. Wilder replaced Breland with Malik Scott, a former heavyweight who got knocked out by Wilder in 2014. This fight is about redemption, retaliation and retribution."
“I’m ready to reintroduce myself to the world. “I’ve dedicated myself and devoted my time and my body, me and my team, to reinventing myself,” Wilder said Wednesday. What's more important is whether Wilder figured out a way to improve from the fighter who seemed tactically outmatched and physically incapable of overcoming it for most rounds of his first two fights with Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), the confident British champion. It all seemed ridiculous to everyone except Wilder and his most devoted fans, but coping with losses is a difficult part of any boxer's job.
He also accused referee Kenny Bayless, a teetotaler, of being drunk. Wilder blamed his performance on a litany of fantastical factors - Breland spiking his water bottle with a muscle relaxant, Fury using illegal gloves, and even leg fatigue from supporting the elaborate costume he wore on his ring walk. The man who helped transform Wilder from an aspiring basketball player to a late-blooming boxer and an eventual heavyweight champ is no longer there, either: Wilder fired trainer Mark Breland, who threw in the towel when his fighter was getting shellacked by Fury. I can’t explain it to you, I have to show you.” “You’re looking at a rejuvenated and reinvented Deontay Wilder," he said recently. Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) also exercised the rematch clause in his contract, forcing Fury back into the Las Vegas ring with him Saturday night for the long-delayed completion of an already memorable trilogy. The former WBC heavyweight champion clearly struggled to process his first loss since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and he responded by upending his career and his reputation in a quest to make it better. Nearly all insist the defeat was an unfair, undeserved setback that will be set right immediately.ĭeontay Wilder did all three in the days, weeks and months after Tyson Fury badly beat him in February 2020. Others make unbelievable, outlandish excuses. World champion boxers have reacted to their first career losses in all sorts of dramatic ways while they scramble to cope after their mental armor of invincibility is punctured.