Veteran trainer Dave Coldwell was shocked with Deontay Wilder’s performance in the recent twelve round decision loss to Joseph Parker.
Last month in Saudi Arabia, Wilder returned for the first time in 14 months, in a battle of former heavyweight champions with Parker.
Parker controlled the pace from start to finish and outboxed Wilder over twelve rounds to secure a dominant unanimous decision win.
Entering that fight, the 38-year-old Wilder had only seen a single round of action since 2021.
Coldwell shakes his head at any fighter who spends too much time on the sidelines.
“Inactivity at a young age is bad, but for fighters who are getting older – and they don’t want to admit this – but for fighters who are getting older…. 36, 37, 38-years-old… when you’re inactive it hurts you a lot, lot more,” Coldwell explained to Seconds Out.
Coldwell saw no issues when watching clips of Wilder training in camp with head coach Malik Scott, but it was a completely different story once he stepped in the ring with Parker.
“I thought [Parker] took the fight to Wilder. Wilder was strange, that was strange for me,” Coldwell said.
“When it came to the fight, I don’t understand. He went straight on the backfoot, he went straight to shooting his jab out toppling over [without] balance. Straight away his legs looked to me like they’re shot. Listen, his legs never had great balance, but they looked worse. He looked terrible. And the fact that he never went for it. It’s not like Parker was running and he couldn’t find him, Parker was there. He couldn’t get the range on the jab, he couldn’t get his distance, forget the right hand. There was nothing there. And when he did start panicking in that last round and he started to throw, it was just terrible.”
Wilder, after going 1-3 in his last four fights, is at the crossroads of his career – but he intends to return to the ring in 2024.