Not to be confused with his illustrious compatriot Joe ‘The Brown Bomber’ Louis, Deontay ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder owes his nickname to the fact that, as an amateur, he won a bronze medal in the heavyweight competition at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He made his professional debut later the same year, knocking down his opponent, Ethan Cox, three times in the second round at the Vanderbilt University Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville, Tennessee, on his way to victory by technical knockout.
Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on October 22, Wilder was a relative latecomer to boxing, but quickly developed a reputation for awesome punching power. Indeed, at the time of writing, his professional record stands at 43-4-1, including 42 knockouts, and his knockout percentile, 97.67%, is the highest in the history of heavyweight boxing.
By that stage sporting a perfect 32-0-0 record, Wilder comprehensively outpointed compatriot Bernard Stiverne, 118-109, 120-107, 119-108, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on January 17, 2015, to win the WBC world heavyweight title. In so doing, he became the first American to hold a major heavyweight title since Shannon Briggs eight years previously. Thereafter, Wilder made 10 successful defences of his WBC world heavyweight title, including a 2:59 destruction of Stiverne, whom he knocked down three times and eventually rendered unconscious, in a rematch at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York on November 4, 2017.
Two fights later, on December 1, 2018, he was taken the distance by Tyson Fury at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and only retained his title by virtue of a split-draw, 115–111, 112–114, 113–113. A rematch was arranged and, back at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on February 22, 2020, Wilder finally surrendered his unbeaten record, when his corner through in the towel after 1:39 of the seventh round. He also lost the trilogy fight with Fury, billed as ‘Once And For All’, at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada on October 9, 2021, when succumbing to an eleventh round knockout.
