{"id":350762,"date":"2026-01-03T23:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/350762\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T23:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:44:10","slug":"deontay-wilder-doesnt-believe-hes-lost-a-step-im-in-my-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/350762\/","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":350763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-350762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}