Deontay Wilder is having a hard time dealing with the fact that he took a brutal loss at the hands of Tyson Fury. Days after Mark Breland threw in the towel in the seventh round, the former champ is still trying to process why he would do such a thing.
Wilder has always instructed Breland, his longtime assistant trainer, and head trainer Jay Deas to never throw in the towel when he’s fighting. Even Deas told him not to do such a thing when Breland brought it up to him after watching Wilder take a number of punches without responding back.
“It’s a human, immediate reaction, like, ‘I didn’t wanna see you get hurt,’ ” Wilder said to BoxingScene.com, referring to Breland’s explanation.
Wilder hasn’t confirmed if he’ll continue to work with Breland going forward, but his recent comments are not going to go over well after he floated the idea of Breland being influenced to throw in the towel by Anthony Dirrell, who was seated near Wilder’s corner.
According to Wilder — Dirrell repeatedly yelled for Wilder’s trainers to stop the fight. Anthony Dirrell is trained by Javan “Sugar Hill” Steward, Fury’s head trainer.
“But I was hurt way more in the first [Luis] Ortiz fight than in this situation. I still had my mind. I still knew what I was doing at certain times. I still knew how to move around the ring. Although I didn’t have the legs, I knew how to move around the ring. Sh-t, I was 42-0, you know, 10 consecutive title defenses. I know what I’m doing in there. It may look a certain type of way, but when you’re talking about a Deontay Wilder, I’m never out of a fight because of my tremendous power. We’ve seen that many a times. I’m never out of a fight. And I’d rather go out on my shield and my sword than anything. You know, by [Breland] knowing that and then Jay, which is the head trainer, Jay told him not to do so. He still proceeded with it. It’s kinda hurtful, man. It really makes you think about different things. I don’t wanna put negative thoughts in my head or have any kind of conspiracy theories going on, but it makes you think. Somebody that did not something that’s not up to him, and even when they’re instructed not to, they still proceeded on.
“And then getting influenced by the opposite team, one of the guys that train with the opposite trainer, you know, it makes you think. He was influenced by [Anthony] Dirrell. They said [Anthony] Dirrell was in back of him screaming, ‘Throw the towel in! We love our champ!’ And, you know, [Anthony] works with ‘Sugar’ as well, the opposite trainer, Tyson’s trainer. [Dirrell] works with him, too. [Breland] said he didn’t hear nothing, but everybody’s saying the same thing. A lot of people that’s around, a lot of people that was in my camp, and if everybody’s hearing it and if my people in the corner can hear him, and Mark said he can’t hear [him], there’s something wrong with that. It’s a lot going on with Mark as well. But, you know, we’re gonna make a big decision by the time I come back from Africa. And we’re gonna go from there.”
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Breland’s tenure on his team will be decided after they take a trip to Africa in March.
