Deontay Wilder admits that his meeting with Zhilei Zhang on Saturday could be his last.
The 38-year-old former heavyweight champion is 1-3 in his last four fights, including two devastating knockout losses to then-reigning champion Tyson Fury and a one-sided defeat against Joseph Parker in his most recent fight.
Another “L” in the main event of DAZN pay-per-view The tag in Saudi Arabia would signal that Wilder’s time has passed.
“This time it will be a different fight,” he said DAZN“and if it weren’t for another war, retirement would certainly be on the cards.”
Wilder (43-3-1, 42 KOs) is famous for his punching power and three-fight series with Fury, a controversial draw in 2018 and knockouts in 2020 and 2021.
The second fight with Fury was painfully one-sided, as the bigger, more skillful man knocked Wilder down twice and stopped him in seven rounds. Wilder’s fighting spirit was on display in the third fight, in which he knocked Fury down twice but was himself knocked down three times and stopped in the 11th minute.
Wilder followed that up with a first-round knockout of Robert Helenius in 2022 – his only victory since 2019 – but he then lost to Parker after a 14-month layoff in December Last year, we lost big.
At that time, many people wondered whether he had lost his form or not. He could dispel the notion against Zhang having that ability – or confirm it.
Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) was also coming off a loss to Parker, but he knocked the Kiwi down twice and lost a close decision. He has stopped Joe Joyce in previous back-to-back fights.
“I just need to go there and be myself, do what I know I can do. I practiced hard for it. In the last match, I also practiced hard but couldn’t pull the trigger. I saw some things, but my body didn’t react,” Wilder said, using words sometimes associated with a shooting fighter.
“It was because of the long layoff and some things we did in camp that we could have changed, some things that I could have listened to. … That kind of messed up some things.
“But all of those things were lessons, and now we have a second chance to fix a lot of things.”
Otherwise, he will have to think a lot.
