Hearn: "No one is afraid of Wilder anymore."

Matchroom Boxing's head promoter Eddie Hearn believes that former world heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder should make his own decision on whether to retire from boxing following his defeat to Zhang Zhilei.

"It's Wilder's personal decision. Wilder has shown in his last two fights that he is no longer as dangerous as he used to be. He needs to understand why that happened. Is it that he doesn't have the desire to fight anymore? I don't know.

I told Anthony Joshua today that people have been afraid of Deontay Wilder for a long time. Nobody's afraid of him anymore. A.J. went through that himself at one point - he scared everybody. But now everybody's afraid of him again. You know what I'm saying? So, as far as I'm concerned, it's Deontay's personal decision. We wish him all the best," Hearn said in an interview with YouTube channel Boxing Social.

Recall that on the night from June 1 to June 2, Zhilei defeated Wilder by technical knockout in the fifth round in the main event of the tournament "5 on 5" from the promotional companies Queensberry Promotions and Matchroom Boxing.