It is easy in today’s sports world
for athletes to lose connection with where they come from. In most cases it is
because most small town athletes never play in their hometowns after high
school and move to big cities with major teams. For Deontay “The Bronze Bomber”
Wilder, home has never left his mind or heart. Due to the nature of
professional boxing, having boxers fight all over the world, there is no
specific place one has to live in order to compete. Growing up in Tuscaloosa,
Ala., Wilder had a determination to make a name for himself and allowing
nothing to get in his way. Wilder’s career couldn’t be better boasting an
undefeated 31-0 record while winning all by knockout, but with all of his
success home was always where he came back to.
Living his life by his own creed of
“When you give God the glory, He’ll give you the victory,” Wilder has great
confidence in what his abilities can achieve. No matter the success he humbly
remembers from where he comes. When it came time to pick a location for his
first promotional event “Young Guns”, there was only one suitable place,
Tuscaloosa.
“Jay (Deas) actually gave me the
opportunity to say ‘Hey what do you think about doing your show in Tuscaloosa
teaming up with Skyy Promotions’ and I said yeah let’s do it,” Deontay Wilder
said.
Young Guns is an event Wilder put
together to help promote young amateur and up and coming professional boxers
from the area. The event took place at Bowers Park in Tuscaloosa on April 5,
2014 and hosted well-known local boxers. Among the amateur boxers there was the
2013-14 Alabama Golden Glove Middleweight champion KeEric Hinton, while in the
professional ranks Tuscaloosa’s own Keith Thompson fought in the second to last
fight and Tuscaloosa native Keandrae “Lightning” Leatherwood headlined the
event.
Fans were enthusiastic about the
event from the first amateur fight at 7 pm to Keandrae Leatherwood’s main event
at 10:30 pm. The fights were held to four rounds, except for the main event
fight which was scheduled for six rounds, but despite the short length of the
fights there were electric fights. There were four fights which ended before
the conclusion of the first round, including Leatherwood’s astonishing knockout
one minute and ten seconds into the main event. During local boxer, Keith
Thompson’s fight the crowd began a chanting “Keith” in support of Thompson.
When Deontay Wilder walked into the
ring to talk about his event, the roof came off the building. Many of the
people may not have known who some of the boxers competing in the event where,
but to have a local icon such as Wilder puts on a boxing event and doesn’t
compete and still the event gets a good turn-out shows the level of admiration
he has in the community.
“I’ve been talking about doing a
promotion for a long time, and the opportunity presented itself. We came out
with this and Young Guns, to me it’s a success,” Wilder said. “Do to the fact
that people knew I wasn’t fighting and they still turned out and showed support
and love, that means a lot to me and that meant a lot for the local fighters.”
Wilder took time out of a busy
schedule to give back to the community he loves, to promote the young boxers
but to also say thank you to his fans. As soon as he walked into the arena fans
were running up to him for pictures and autographs and Wilder obliged everyone
person who came up to him. Where most celebrities would sign a few items and
snap a couple pictures, Wilder took the time to have true conversations with
anyone that wanted to talk to him, and he himself walked around the entire gym
thanking everyone for supporting the event.
In his professional career things
could not be bigger at the moment, Wilder just defeated Malik Scott to move one
step closer to the top of the boxing world. On May 10, 2014 his wait will
finally be over when Bermane Stiverne and Chris Arreola fight to decide who
will take Vitali Klitschko’s vacant title and fight Wilder to decide the
champion. This will bring Wilder one step closer of achieving his dream of
crowning Tuscaloosa its first ever heavyweight champion.
“It’s going to be a dream come true.
I will definitely be there at that fight front and center to let the winner
know here I am, here’s your prize. I don’t know if that’s a good prize or bad
prize but this is what you get,” Wilder said. “We’ve come a long way, it’s been
a long process, but it seems like every things gone by so fast. We are final
here fighting for the major belt the WBC World title, to bring that back to
Title Town is going to be crazy. We have had a lot of had a lot of national
champions, we have never had a world champion. I’ve got to bring it back.”
