LOS ANGELES—Deontay Wilder believes he has to be the busier boxer when he meets Tyson Fury again.
Although Wilder threw more more total punches (430 to 327) in their first meeting in 2018, a much disputed draw, he was outlanded 84 to 71 by his British counterpart.
“I have to throw a lot more in general, for real. The jab sets things up. It sets the right hand up. The left hook, and the uppercut, and everything you want to throw right after it. We’re adding a lot more two-and-three [punch combinations],” said Wilder.
Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) meets Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs) on Feb. 22 in a highly anticipated heavyweight showdown at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as part of an unprecedented Fox and ESPN pay-per-view promotion.
Wilder said in addition to throwing more punches, he’s going to work on his patience and feet work as well.
“I could never make myself calm down,” he said. “A lot of things are going to be changed. It’s going to be a totally different fight. I’m not going to be doing anything different in training though. I’m doing what I know how to do. A lot of this stuff is muscle memory. We could be preparing for a lot of things during training camp that we’re not going to use in the fight once the look is different in front of you.”
Wilder said he believed he was the more aggressive fighter in the first fight against Fury, especially in the first four rounds.
“I won the first four rounds easily,” he said. “He was doing a lot of taunting and little things to win over judges in the end. I’m glad we had the judges that I had. The unofficial scorecard painted a different narrative to people that had the casuals who came into boxing looking at it like, ‘what’s going on?’
“Also looking at the fight, I was overly excited and too anxious to do something that I know I can do normally on a day to day basis with my natural ability that I know I have, instead of staying patient and letting it just come to me. … Even when I had my guard up, and certain things that I normally don’t do in a fight, and certain other positions. I always say, ‘I don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s coming. And when it comes, bam baby good night. I tried to force it. I can correct a lot of wrongs into rights on Feb. 22.”
Wilder said the quick turnaround for Fury after fighting Luis Ortiz on Nov. 23 will only help him and make him better. Wilder weighed in at just 212½ pounds for his first fight against Fury, and his trainer Jay Deas wants to weigh in the mid-220s in the rematch. For the Ortiz rematch, Wilder weighed 219.5 pounds.
“Weight doesn’t matter to me. My power carries on from the first round through the twelfth,” said Wilder. “You have to train for focus just like boxing skills. It’s something you have to develop. If you can see, you can believe. That’s when the magic happens … Fury said he’s going to knock me out in the second round. Nobody in this room believes that.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com and currently does TV commentary for combat sports programming that airs on Fox Sports and hosts his own radio show in Los Angeles. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk.akopyan@gmail.com.