At the conclusion of Deontay Wilder’s defeat by Zhilei Zhang, in June 2024, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
It seemed the last we’d see of Wilder – a fighter whose career, at his peak, I consistently really enjoyed following. He’s one of the biggest punchers who’s ever lived; he was an American heavyweight after an era in which America was starved of top-level heavyweight boxing; he was aggressive, charismatic, and colourful.
He was lacklustre that night in the same way that he was lacklustre seven months earlier when losing to Joseph Parker. The fire and energy of old seemed gone. “This is the end of Deontay Wilder – we’re not going to see ‘Bomb Squad’ ever again.”
The damage of his trilogy with Tyson Fury has taken its toll, in the same way that the two fights with Oleksandr Usyk showed that they have also damaged Fury. Both fighters left plenty of themselves in the ring on those brutal nights – and Wilder left even more behind than did Fury.
After the third fight with Fury in October 2021, and before the date with Parker in December 2023, Wilder stopped Robert Helenius inside a round – suggesting that those around him, who had previously kept him so active, knew that he needed time and space to stand any chance of recovering some of what he had lost.
He also didn’t just pay a physical price for those three fights with Fury. Psychologically, he might even have paid a bigger one. Fighters go through wars and regularly retain the scars they inflict and then change off of the back of them – sometimes deliberately, in an attempt to avoid suffering in the same way again.
At his peak Wilder had such self belief – the conviction that he only ever needed one right hand to turn a potential defeat into another stoppage victory – and against Parker and Zhang that appeared to be gone. There was a sense of resignation against Parker – we’d never previously seen that – and yet the loss to Zhang, in five rounds, seemed even more telling.
Since the second of his defeats by Fury, Wilder’s been open about participating in an ayahuasca ceremony, which also increasingly looks significant. It’s been suggested that people can release their egos when doing so – but fighters, more than most, need their egos. Some need to be egomaniacs; they need to be self-absorbed, fearless, and perhaps even delusional. It’s hard not to conclude that that happening to Wilder has contributed to the lack of hunger, drive and conviction he’s since fought with.
And yet, because he’s such a devastating puncher – and he’ll unquestionably retain his power – when Friday’s fight was announced I found myself feeling nostalgic. A victory here, if it’s of the explosive nature widely expected, means that for the short term at least, he’ll be back.
It’s difficult for any of us to have any confidence about the kind of headspace he’s in – Wilder himself perhaps still doesn’t even know. But if he can focus for as long as he needs to, to some extent followers of his career will be able to enjoy him being back.
Tyrrell Anthony Herndon is the perfect kind of opponent. He got stopped in one round by Efe Ajagba, and by Richard Torrez in two – and Ajagba, with his height, range and right hand, is in many respects Deontay Wilder lite.
If Wilder struggles against him and only earns a decision, his career will finally be over. But even if he makes a slow start and then records his 43rd stoppage – and I expect him to stop Herndon – I then expect the overdue fight with Anthony Joshua to finally follow.
It might not be the fight it was capable of being if they had been matched in 2017 or 2018, but in 2025 a fight between them would still be very appealing. Back then, Wilder and Joshua fighting might even have been more appealing than either of them fighting Fury. There was a time after Joshua lost to Andy Ruiz Jnr that I’d have made Wilder the strong favourite, but if they fought later in 2025 – when they’re both in decline – and Wilder is preparing off the back of beating Herndon, I’d struggle to pick a favourite.
Both fighters appear to have come full circle. There was a time when they both deserved to be considered the world’s leading heavyweight, and when they had an aura, were intimidating, and felt invincible. They then both lost, and became human and vulnerable – to different degrees they tried to reinvent themselves – and they both continue to show the scars of those defeats.
The similarities are almost eerie. Victory over the other, given their history, might even be what they need to finally heal some of those scars, even if they’ll never again be the same.
