By Norm Frauenheim-
Deontay Wilder is a man with one punch and many words.
Those words – unending, often contradictory and always brash – were there, again and again, Thursday throughout a conference call for his heavyweight title fight Dec. 1 against Tyson Fury at Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
The call ended, but not because Wilder was finished. He talks the way he breathes. He exhales words and I’m sure there were more, many more, throughout a workout that was scheduled to follow his telephonic session at the bully pulpit.
He preached.
He promised.
He bragged.
It was part sales-pitch, part silly, mostly over-the-top and yet sometimes a genuine expression of a fearless fighter willing to risk it all.
“To do this, you gotta be crazy,’’ Wilder said. “We already know you’re not supposed to get hit in the head. Every time you do, there’s deterioration.’’
Then, Wilder slipped into a sing-song tone, including what sounded like a weird lyric to the drum-like thump that comes with every concussive blow to the head.
“You’re, changing, you’re changing,’’ he hummed
It was just one moment among many from Wilder, who has often been dismissed as one-dimensional. That single dimension is his big right hand, which he delivers with Tommy Hearns’ old-school leverage. Wilder’s answer for that one is also one dimensional. It never changes, because he has never lost. That right is a dimension that nobody has been able to beat throughout 40 fights. Thirty-nine of those victories have been knockouts. Maybe, Fury will be the first to find a way to negate, or simply elude that right. Maybe, Fury has the dimensions to finally beat him.
But, in so many words, Wilder said that wasn’t going to happen.
“Never been anybody like me,’’ Wilder said. “No one is going to beat me on Dec. 1. No one, not on this special occasion.’’
There’s a chip-on-the-shoulder motivation behind much of what Wilder says. He often refers to his scrabble-poor roots in Alabama. He often talks about how promoter, matchmakers and rival heavyweight Anthony Joshua have failed to give him just due.
“This is my time to shine, my coming-out party,’’ he said of Dec. 1. “I should have been here a long time ago.’’
Despite the prevailing criticism of what he does within the ropes, Wilder’s abundant words reveal an out-sized personality full of multiple dimensions.
He’s brash enough to be outrageous. A couple of examples:
“You all want to see Ali and the Golden Era, I’m here.’’
“Excuse me Holyfield, I’m The Real Deal, too.’’
A couple of reactions:
Groan.
Groan.
Then, however, Wilder reminded me of the unknown kid I saw and spoke to at the Beijing Olympics. He won a bronze medal, modest by any standard, yet the only medal won by any U.S. boxer the 2008 Games.
Modest and mouthy, all at the same time.
“I’m a Wilder, a different breed,’’ he said a decade after those Olympics.
Among all the words he said Thursday, those were the truest.
