Holt McCallany talks Joshua-Wallin, Wilder-Parker & The Iron Claw

Longtime actor and boxing fan Holt McCallany has weighed in on how he feels about the Anthony Joshua vs. Otto Wallin matchup and why he finds it hard to root for Deontay Wilder.

This coming Saturday (December 23), there will be a huge boxing card filled with superstar names who are former and current world champions. In the headliner, Joshua meets Wallin, and the co-featured bout will be a collision between Wilder and Joseph Parker. Joshua and Wilder will reportedly sign a two-bout agreement before their fights this weekend take place.

It’s a fun time for fans of the sweet science, but could we be in for a big upset on fight night? A decent amount of fans and experts believe if there is a shocking fight result on Saturday, it’ll be Wallin pulling off a big win over Joshua, possibly putting a dent in those plans for AJ to fight Wilder.

During an interview with our own Abraham Gonzalez, McCallany admitted that he was also wondering if Joshua could avoid disaster against the dark horse heavyweight that is Wallin. (Editor’s Note: The video interview also goes into the behind the scenes of his role as Fritz Von Erich in the movie The Iron Claw which hits theaters December 22.)

“I was invited to an event recently celebrating Jack Dempsey’s famous win over Luis Firpo at the Polo Grounds in New York 100 years ago, and Otto Wallin was in attendance at that event,” McCallany said. “I like Otto very much. I think that he is an underrated heavyweight. He showed me a lot in his performance against Tyson Fury. I don’t have anything in particular against Anthony Joshua, but to be fair, Mr. Joshua, I know he’s a former heavyweight champion of the world. He’s a guy who’s made a tremendous fortune as a professional fighter, but he does have multiple losses on his record now. Two to Oleksandr Usyk, obviously. We all know about the first fight with Andy Ruiz, and I just think that because Otto is a little less known to the public, that people may be sort of overlooking him a little bit. But I think he brings more to the party than people give him credit for, and I’m very curious about that matchup.”

The Iron Claw star then turned his attention to Wilder, and he had something to say about how “The Bronze Bomber” handled the first loss of his pro boxing career. In February 2020, Wilder put the WBC heavyweight gold at stake in a rematch against Tyson Fury. It was clear that things weren’t going Wilder’s way, as he was knocked down and battered.

At the time, Mark Breland, Wilder’s trainer, threw in the towel in the seventh round. As a result, Wilder cut ties with Breland and enlisted Malik Scott as his trainer. With Scott in his corner, Fury knocked Wilder out cold in their thrilling trilogy fight in October 2021.

McCallany revealed he’s good friends with Breland and made it clear he didn’t like how Wilder conducted himself.

“I was extremely disappointed with Deontay’s decision to fire my friend Mark Breland after Mark threw in the towel in the second Fury fight because Deontay was suffering serious damage in that fight, and Mark has been around boxing his entire life, and Mark had been a part of the Wilder camp for many years and only had Deontay’s best interest at heart. And did that because that’s his responsibility as a trainer, is first and foremost, to make sure that his fighter lives to fight another day. Deontay was not going to come back and win that fight. Deontay was only going to suffer more punishment on his way to being knocked out, and I think to blame it on Mark is unfair. I know it really hurt Mark ’cause he’s a good friend of mine, and that disappointed me. I won’t pretend that it didn’t.”

Fernando Quiles Jr.

Fernando has been covering combat sports and pro wrestling for over a decade. He currently writes for BJPenn.com and has also contributed for Sports Illustrated’s MMA Knockout. Fernando is excited to be a part of FightsATW to provide you with the latest news content in the world of pro wrestling.

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