Wilder says that boxing is a ‘survival business’

Former world champion in heavyweight division Deontay Wilder (43-4-1, 42 KOs) will return in ring on June 27. He will face Tyrrell Anthony Herndon (24-5) in a 10-rounder in Kansas.

Wilder has lost four of last five fights. He was WBC World heavyweight champion for five years.

Speaking for “BoxingScene”, Wilder said that business side of the sport has done him no favors.

“I don’t feel, I know it has,” Wilder told BoxingScene, when asked whether boxing has served him badly. “But at the end of the day, the business is not a sport. I don’t even like when people call it a sport. Why do y’all call it a sport? Tell me. Why would people call this a sport, this business a sport? What makes this a sport first and foremost? It’s just because men get together and they have sportsmanship inside of a business. It doesn’t make it a sport. Just go even deeper with what sports actually provide for their athletes. So you calling us athletes? If it’s a sport, then you got to be an athlete. In boxing, you think we’re athletes? Yeah, we could be…. But as sports are concerned, as I’m concerned with sports, boxing don’t have nothing nowhere where actual sports provide for the athletes. In boxing, it’s a brutal business. It’s all about yourself.”

Wilder last fought on June last year, loosing by TKO in round five against Zhilei Zhang.

“I’m like a veteran. So this is not a sport to me at all. This is strictly business. From the time we train to get out of a mindset to be able to hurt another man that’s trying to hurt him, to the mindset of getting my mind ready so I can be able to breathe, my breathing exercises, my fundamentals of being able to defend myself, to go at an offensive state when it’s time. And this is what we call staying alive; survival. This is a survival business, baby. One punch, that’s it. We’ve just seen it many times. I don’t think no sport is like this, if you want to consider it a sport.”