{"id":386509,"date":"2026-01-03T23:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/386509\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T23:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:11:11","slug":"deontay-wilder-doesnt-believe-hes-lost-a-step-im-in-my-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/386509\/","title":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder Doesn\u2019t Believe He’s Lost A Step: ‘I\u2019m In My Prime’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deontay Wilder <\/a>hasn\u2019t looked as explosive and violent as he once did.<\/p>\n

At 40, he looks past his best, but he doesn\u2019t believe that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in my prime now,\u201d Wilder to Naji on Cigar Talk.<\/p>\n

Wilder still sports that menacing look. Yet, that mind-numbing power he once had hasn\u2019t shown up when he needed it most recently.<\/p>\n

In four of his last six, the former WBC heavyweight champion has come up woefully short. His last few appearances have been particularly dreadful.<\/p>\n

Joseph Parker won nearly every round against Wilder in December 2023. Roughly six months later, Zhilei Zhang <\/a>took his pound of flesh, stopping Wilder in the fifth round.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the Alabama native got back on track against Tyrrell Herndon. But even with Wilder being viewed as a gigantic favorite, he didn\u2019t exactly blow him out of the water.<\/p>\n

Wilder scored two knockdowns <\/a>before knocking out Herndon in the seventh on June 27.
Now Wilder is in the middle of negotiating a matchup <\/a>with Ring, IBF, WBA and WBC heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian has seemed adamant about facing Wilder, who was last champion in 2021, in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n

Wilder (44-4-1, 43 KOs) figures to be a massive underdog, but he believes his late start in the sport has helped preserve him despite his advanced age. <\/p>\n

\u201cI started boxing very late,\u201d he said. \u201cI started at 21.”<\/p>\n

Three of his four losses have come by stoppage, the most recent in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder hasn\u2019t looked as explosive and violent as he once did. At 40, he looks past his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,1151,1144,1150,1149,1142,711,1145,1146,1147,1148,1143,49,48,1156,1155,1138,1136,1137,1153,1139,1135,1157,1152,82,1154,1134,1141,1140],"class_list":{"0":"post-386509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-ca","21":"tag-canada","22":"tag-disqualification","23":"tag-draw","24":"tag-fight","25":"tag-fighter","26":"tag-fighter-news","27":"tag-knockout","28":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","29":"tag-ring","30":"tag-ring-magazine","31":"tag-split-decision","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-technical-knockout","34":"tag-the-ring","35":"tag-top-fighters","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}