BEIJING — Along one of the walls in the basement gym that USA Boxing has called home during the Olympics are sheets of paper filled with some of sports’ most hoaried clichés. “Not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog” kind of stuff.
But if team officials were smart, they would rip down those trite adages and spend a few minutes chatting with Deontay Wilder, who could provide enough wallpaper for the next three Olympiads.
Wilder, an engaging, lanky 22-year-old from Tuscaloosa, Ala., would certainly welcome the conversation. At this point, he’s probably pretty lonely. Fighting in the heavyweight classification, the 6-foot-7, 201-pound Wilder is the only American left standing. Luckily, Wilder can bring the chatter, turning a phrase just as smoothly as any left-right combo he might fashion in Friday night’s semifinal bout against Italy’s Clemente Russo.
“I love myself. I love how my mind works,” he said, somehow sounding quite humble. “I love thinking about my future. I plan everything out.”
But it was hard for even Wilder to draw up the blueprint that got him to Beijing. By almost any reckoning, Wilder would be a longshot to be the last man standing in a boxing competition. He only picked up the sport three years ago, soon after his daughter, Naieya, was born. When he made the Olympic team, he had but 21 fights under his belt.
“He might seem unlikely from the outside, but if you saw this work and knew how determined he is, you wouldn’t think so,” said U.S. team coach Dan Campbell. “His attitude is he’s going to impose his will on you, no matter how experienced you are.”
Wilder said he’s scared of trouble — “It’s so easy to get into trouble and so hard to get out of it. For me, it only takes a little bit; I don’t even want to see what else might happen.” Even so, he admits that for whatever reason, trouble likes him, leading to numerous fistfights as a teenager.
As a result, he gained a reputation as someone who was pretty handy with his hands. Initially, he thought that talent would manifest itself on a basketball court or football field, but those sports lost their importance, he said, after his daughter was born with spina bifida.
Instead, in order to support his child, Wilder quit the junior college he was attending and went to work. He would begin at a Red Lobster from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., get a couple hours sleep, then go to the local Mercedes-Benz plant, where he would draw a 12-hour shift.
But even when it seemed like the closest he would get to a 600SLK was riveting nuts and bolts on one on the assembly line, Wilder said he always knew he would make it big. That’s just his nature, he said, a firm belief that was always seconded by his grandmother.
The prophesy began to come true when Wilder found boxing, meeting up with an old school friend who, remembering Wilder’s street fighting skills, told him about a boxing trainer who was visiting a local gym.
When Wilder got there, he was hooked, even though the trainer, Jay Deas, put him through days of torture, thinking the youngster would fade away like so many other wannabe Mike Tysons.
It never happened.
“You can say, ‘I play football, I play basketball, I play golf, but you can’t ‘play boxing,’ ” Wilder said. “Everybody dreams of having that job they want to wake up every morning to do. I get up every morning for this. It’s something I love to do.”
Even after he proved himself in Alabama, winning two national Golden Gloves championships, there still were skeptics along the road to the Olympics, where numerous observers thought the novice couldn’t possibly qualify for the U.S. team.
“I’d heard his name during the qualifying tournaments,” said Campbell of seeing Wilder for the first time, “then during the trials I was sitting at a table with Evander Holyfield and some other people, watching this raw talent just go through everybody and we were asking ourselves, ‘What would we have to do with this kid if he should make the team?'”
Wilder said he used the negativity as fuel.
“People don’t know how dedicated I am,” he said. “People doubted me, they still doubt me. To me, that’s all just something to keep you going.”
Campbell said it wasn’t a matter of training Wilder differently, but rather coaching him more. The team brought in numerous coaches just to work with him.
It is perhaps Wilder’s affinity for playing the underdog that has led to his success here. In both of his previous fights at the Beijing Games, Wilder trailed entering the final round. In the quarterfinals, he beat Mohammed Arjaoui of Morocco only after coming out of the front end of an “accepted score” — the tallies from the five judges being added together with the best and worst thrown out.
Wilder said he was stunned when the referee raised his hand, but when it happened, he was guaranteed at least a bronze medal.
Now there inevitably will be questions about turning pro. Rau’shee Warren, a teammate in this year’s Olympics, was the first U.S. boxer in 32 years to participate in back-to-back Games. Although he initially considered the sport as a way to make a lot of money, Wilder said he has been captivated by the idea of traveling around the world as an amateur.
Wilder said he’s constantly been told that the professional fight game “is nothing but a bunch of snakes.” Even so, he said, even the meanest cobra in the pit has some redeeming features.
“Everybody’s telling me to stay away from Don King and those guys, but I look at it like this: Everybody’s got some kind of dirt on ’em.”
Everybody but Daddy’s little girl. Three-year-old Naieya is doing well physically and even learning some Chinese phrases to wow Wilder with during their web chats.
That’s nice but Wilder said the conversation he’s looking forward to the most upon his return is the one he’ll have with his daughter.
“I haven’t seen her in two or three months,” he said, citing a schedule that has seen him training in Colorado Springs or traveling the globe. “When I see that face, it’ll be like me having her all over again. It’ll be like her first Christmas.”
And Daddy may even be bearing a golden ornament for the tree.
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
