Stephen A. Smith brands champion 'sore loser' over comments about Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou
13/11/2023 22:12
Stephen A. Smith has had enough of Deontay Wilder's complaining.
The famous American sports pundit has taken aim at Wilder who has again made baseless claims about Tyson Fury 'cheating' during their trilogy fights.
Former heavyweight world champion Wilder had a perfect 40-0 record before facing Fury for the first time in 2018.
Their first encounter resulted in a draw, before 'The Gypsy King' won their final two trilogy bouts by knockout.
That initial draw was the only blot on Fury's record, until he faced MMA megastar Francis Ngannou in an exhibition bout in October and was knocked down before a hugely-controversial split-decision win.
Wilder was in attendance for the fight, and later commented: "After the fight a lot of people were figuring out what was going on, maybe he did cheat, maybe he did have something in his gloves [against me].
"All of these things are coming up now, everybody is saying that he lost [to Ngannou]."
Those comments quickly went viral, but left Smith with his head literally in his hands.
"I'm pretty annoyed," he began his podcast. "For some reason this [Ngannou fight] prompted words out of the mouth from Deontay Wilder."
Explaining that he was at later fights where Wilder was comprehensively beaten, Smith then laid into 'The Bronze Bomber' for blaming his costume for his first of two defeats against Fury.
Surmising his issue with Wilder's latest cheating claims, Smith went on to say: "They've got trainers in the room, they've got folks that are referees and officials that are in the room when you are getting your fists taped up and all of that stuff.
"They test you after fights, the bottom line is you got dropped and Tyson Fury came over to you whilst you were sitting on your stool and said that he still respects you and Deontay said he has got no love for him, because he is a sore loser.
"If you felt that he was cheating, why get back into the ring with him, after the split-decision the first time? Why get back into the ring with him two more times?
"And if you are going to get back into the ring with him two more times, why not have extra people watching his gloves?"
Since his trilogy defeat, Wilder has been in the ring just once more, taking only a round to beat Robert Helenius in October 2022.
Now inactive for over a year, it's heavily rumoured that the American will return to action against Britain's Anthony Joshua.
