IT WAS AROUND 4 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2020. Malik Scott had just landed back in Los Angeles. He was tired. He was distraught, and quite suddenly, he was being offered a new job.
"I'm going to make changes," Deontay Wilder said. "I want you to be my head trainer."
There was already debate as to whether Wilder was in an optimal frame of mind. Hours before, he had suffered his first defeat -- not merely a stoppage, but a kind of ritualized humiliation at the hands of Tyson Fury. Fury took the WBC heavyweight belt Wilder had worn for six years in that rematch.