Deontay Wilder is still confused by his corner's decision to throw in the towel during his fight against Tyson Fury, and he thinks the decision was influenced by a rival boxer.
During an interview with BoxingScene.com, Wilder explains that he's always instructed his assistant trainer, Mark Breland, and head trainer, Jay Deas, to never throw in the towel during his fights. Deas also reportedly told Breland not to do it during the fight against Fury, despite Wilder taking a lot of unanswered punches. Still, Breland threw in the towel, causing the referee to stop the match in the seventh round.
"It’s a human, immediate reaction, like, 'I didn’t wanna see you get hurt,'" Wilder said. "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."
Wilder went on to suggest that Breland was influenced by former WBC super-middleweight champion, Anthony Dirrell, to stop the fight. Dirrell is trained by Javan "Sugar Hill" Steward who is also Fury's head trainer.
"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!'" Wilder said. "[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."
In a conversation with boxer Claressa Shields that was uploaded to the Konkrete Jungle YouTube account, Dirrell denied Wilder's accusations.
"I don't know why they think it was me," Dirrell said. "These people weird. But if it was me, I can't get nobody to stop no fight. How's somebody from the audience get your corner to stop a fight. ... People blame it on everything and it's not true."
