Joseph Parker is wondering where Deontay Wilder “is coming from” after the American made a series of excuses for his shock defeat in Saudi Arabia in December.
One of the three judges ruled that Wilder lost all 12 rounds in an unanimous decision loss to the underdog Kiwi heavyweight in Riyadh just before Christmas as Parker upset the odds with one of his best ever performances.
Wilder is no stranger to listing tenuous reasons for his losses – he blamed one of his defeats to Tyson Fury on wearing heavy elaborate headgear and armour on a ring walk – and the latest is almost as entertaining.
“It was a boring fight,” Wilder said in an interview.
“Nothing really happened. I went back to training the next day. He didn’t really do anything. They [the judges] just went off the little flurries or whatever.
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“In the training for that I had to travel two times – 20 hours of travelling. And those guys were already in Europe. They were only two or three hours away. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying what I had to go through.”
The reality was the three judges gave the victory to Parker via an extremely wide decision because the normally destructive Wilder fought almost entirely on the back foot and was unwilling or unable to connect cleanly with his notorious right hand.
It was a curious departure from his mindset straight after the fight when he said: “My timing was off a little bit. Big love to Joseph, he did a great job avoiding a lot of my punches.
