‘I was a bit embarrassed’ – Simon Jordan reflects on heated altercation with Deontay Wilder

Simon Jordan has had a little over 24 hours to reflect on his explosive confrontation with Deontay Wilder, and his overriding feeling is that of ’embarrassment’.

Wilder appeared on the latest addition of the talkBOXING podcast on Wednesday afternoon alongside national treasure Derek Chisora to drum up interest in their upcoming clash on April 4 at London’s O2 Arena.

Everything appeared to be very cordial at first, but when Jordan brought up Tyson Fury‘s name, the atmosphere changed.

Wilder took particular exception to Jordan pressing him on allegations he had pedalled about Fury cheating during their barnburning trilogy.

The conversation then took a turn for the worse as Wilder stood up, lambasted Jordan and stormed off the show.

“I know the truth, I have the facts,” shouted Wilder.

“I got the proof, I have got the people to tell it. Understand that. What I say in boxing is the truth; I risk my life for your entertainment.

“Why is it so much harder to believe a black man than a white man?”

Simon Jordan reacts

On Thursday, in his first appearance on the talkSPORT network since his altercation with Wilder, Jordan gave his unfiltered thoughts to co-host Jim White.

“He’s mentioned Tyson Fury, he’s called him a cheat, so I think it is entirely appropriate to ask him to qualify for what he said,” remarked Jordan.

“He didn’t want to talk about it, so my initial reaction was ‘Well, you are going to’, which to some extent could be considered provocative, because if I were in his shoes, I would have probably said ‘No, I’m not’, and that is what he said.

“It then escalated from there, and he wanted to make it about something completely different.

“He wanted to make it about a race thing, where he is a black man, and he has been oppressed.

“But I wasn’t saying that I believed Fury over him, I was asking him to explain his viewpoint, which he said to other people about why Fury had cheated…

“At the time, I was a little bit embarrassed because I thought the show was coming off the rails, and Deontay Wilder is a big name.

“So I’m sat there, a bit embarrassed by it, and then I thought ‘He’s a bit of a t**’, and then I thought ‘Is he on drugs or something? Or is this theatrics?’

“And then I came to the conclusion that he’s not right, he’s not well, and all this ayahuasca stuff probably has worked in reverse. It is supposed to make you calm and zen-like.

“I didn’t provoke Deontay Wilder by asking him a question that he didn’t want to answer. I asked him a question about something he said, not something I was trying to engineer into clickbait.

“He called Tyson Fury a cheat. He’s sitting in England. Tyson Fury is a legend in some people’s minds here, so I thought it wasn’t unreasonable.

“And he didn’t like it, and he can’t answer it, so he gets all agitated and upset about it.

“He turns it into a debate about oppression. There is loads more that you didn’t see. He threatened to punch me in the face and talked about lynching, and god knows what else…

“That looks like a man who’s struggling with things because there was no reason for that reaction. There was no provocation, there was no incitement.

“I wasn’t told not to ask the question. It was on the schedule from the producer.

“Perhaps I could have not said, ‘Oh, you’re going to answer it,’ and perhaps I could have phrased it slightly differently, but the reality is his behaviour disappointed me, because I was looking forward to meeting him.”