DEONTAY WILDER INTERVIEW: Former heavyweight champion on being ‘stabbed in the back’ by those closest to him, overcoming years of mental health struggles – and his plans to face Anthony Joshua in Africa

Deontay Wilder does not hesitate when asked what went wrong. Not against Joseph Parker. Not against Zhilei Zhang. Not in the fights that prompted so many to declare the former heavyweight champion finished.

‘It definitely was psychological for sure,’ Wilder told Clubhouse Boxing. ‘My performances were poor due to my mental state rather than my physical. My physical state was great. I felt great and I feel great now. I can still whack. Come on, we don’t need to question that. But, mentally, if that goes, so does the body. You don’t have an engine no more. It’s done.’

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For more than a decade, Wilder’s engine seemed endless. From a late-starting Olympic bronze medalist to the most feared knockout artist in boxing, he captured the WBC heavyweight title in 2015 and defended it ten times, his right hand erasing entire game plans in a second. Even after two brutal losses to Tyson Fury ended his reign, the belief remained that Wilder’s power alone could carry him forward. What few saw was the damage accumulating far from the ring.

‘It’s been tough,’ he said. ‘It’s been tough going through the journey that I’ve had to go through over the years. And I’m talking about outside of the ring. Outside of the ring has been the major battle of my life. But I’m still here. I’m so happy at this moment in time in my life. I feel great. Everything is going good. I had to go through that rough patch to get here and it was definitely rough.’

By ‘rough patch,’ Wilder meant betrayal. ‘If you never felt it, it’s worse than a heartbreak,’ he said. ‘Especially when people are so close to you. You don’t see certain things when you’ve got so much going on. You’re doing good. You’re helping out everybody. And then you are stabbed in the back by those close to you.

‘After that, things were never the same anymore. I was uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to expect next week or next month. So it was like the fun is over. The party bus is coming to a stop, so let me get off at the next exit.’

‘The people that hurt you the most are the people that are closer to you,’ he added. ‘That’s the worst. That’s the hardest. That’s what hurts you the most. I learnt the hard way. People I never thought or suspected were the ones going behind my back.’

For a man who has always prided himself on mental toughness, the low point was unfamiliar. ‘I always felt like I could handle it. My mind is strong enough. I can get through it,’ he said. ‘But I had never experienced a mental space like it. It was the lowest I had ever been.’

By the time he entered training camps for Parker and Zhang, the weight was crushing. ‘I was still thinking about my problems outside the ring while I’m in camp,’ he said. ‘I spent the majority of camp trying to get my mind right. I kept telling myself it’s okay, but it wasn’t okay. I was just trying to convince myself and trick myself into thinking I would make it through the fights.

‘I had all these people relying on me to go in there, fight and perform. I couldn’t let them down so I compromised my mental health. I didn’t want to be there and I was already thinking about after the fights before they even took place.’

Critics questioned his legs, his reflexes, his age. Wilder says they were looking in the wrong place. ‘It wasn’t physical,’ he said. ‘When I got in the ring and the bell say ding it was just about survival. It was like a hypnosis thing. Everything that I put together in camp went out the f***ing window.’

Eventually, he reached a point he had never reached before: acceptance that he could not fix this alone. ‘I decided to get the help of two therapists,’ Wilder said. ‘And a sports psychologist. I had a lot of talks. A lot of things they put in perspective for me. Looking at situations, but looking at them in a different way.’

One lesson became central. ‘They talk about putting things on the shelf. They also explained I should be putting energy into things you can’t control. If you can’t control it, put it on the shelf. And when you put things on the shelf, it gets dust on it. You start to forget things. That’s been a healing mechanism for me.’

The work also forced Wilder to confront trauma long predating his boxing career. ‘When you go through childhood, PTSD, depending on the environment or situations you went through, as adults we still deal with that. And when you get in certain situations, it can hit you all over again.’

Being falsely accused, he says, is one of his deepest triggers. ‘That really hits me. I used to get accused of things I didn’t do, even as a child. Even as an adult. Don’t accuse me of something that I didn’t do. I’m a man. If I do something, I’ll do the time for the crime. But don’t put nothing on me that I didn’t do.’

Now 38, Wilder says time and perspective have reshaped him. ‘Age is a beautiful thing,’ he said. ‘You get wiser. The things that used to bother you, they don’t no more. Somebody come up acting crazy, you wasting your energy. I’m having fun. We laughing. We in good spirits.

‘There’s a lot of miserable people. Low-vibrational people. They want you to come down there with them. I’m not the one that’s gonna give you that. I love the space that I’m in. I’ve been through hell and back. And I ain’t going back there no more. I’m not letting nobody get me to that point again.’

And now, he says, the Bronze Bomber is ready to remind the world why he was one of the most feared heavyweights of his era and is adamant he can do so against Anthony Joshua.

‘I mean we still here. I’m not retired, he’s not retired. We’re still in the same business. It’s still one of the biggest fights in the world. People are still heavily invested in that fight with me and Joshua. It’s going to happen. Like I said, I am here, I’ve always been here and I’ve always wanted that fight.

‘I want to know who the best is and we are going to find out. I’ve been talking to some people over in Africa, I am not going to name them, but they know Joshua too and we’ve been discussing bringing that fight to Africa. I would love to do it. Look, that fight is definitely going to happen. We just need to wait and see where.’

He is also in talks with Oleksandr Usyk, adding another potential chapter to a storied career. But one thing is clear: Wilder believes the mental battle that nearly broke him is finally over, and he is back to his ruthless self – the one who wants to inflict that power on Anthony Joshua when the moment is right.