By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder sees desperation in British heavyweight Anthony Joshua with him coming to the U.S to try and make a name for himself over there. Not satisfied with being a big fish in a small pond over in the UK, Joshua has come over to the United States to try and make it big in that large country.
Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs), who holds the WBC heavyweight title, wants Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) to know that he’s going to have to come see him if he wants to become a star in the U.S. Wilder says Joshua had been running all these years when he was trying to get a fight against, and that he was hiding inside of his castle in England, not willing to come out and face him.
Wilder will be defending his WBC title this Saturday night against Dominic Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs) on Showtime at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. There’s a lot of interest in this fight from the boxing world both in the U.S and worldwide. The fans want to see these two giant heavyweights mix it up. The winner of the fight is expected to face lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in early 2020. Fury is making a big deal about him being the lineal champion. In other words, beat former IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to become the lineal champion, even though he lost those titles quickly due to inactivity and mental health problems.
Joshua will be making his debut in the U.S on June 1 against the heavyset Andy Ruiz Jr. (32-1, 21 KOs) on DAZN and Sky Sports Box Office at Madison Square Garden in New York. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn picked out a fat heavyweight that is going to make him look bad inside the ring in the eyes of some fans. Hearn is banking on the Americans rallying behind Ruiz Jr. That probably won’t happen though. Ruiz Jr. is about as well known as random fighter that that Hearn could have chosen.
”You’re just a big fish in a small pond. You’re going to find out what I’ve got for you,” Wilder said to the media about Anthony Joshua. ”You’re going to get what’s coming, trust me. Don’t worry. All of a sudden he wants me now. They did that five times, and they didn’t fight me. I don’t want to hear about him coming to see me, because I’m coming to see you, and you’re still running. So now you’re desperate and got nowhere to go. You want me to come and see you? I know the media, the public and the fans want to see the fight, but why do I always have to be the one that’s reasoning? Why do I always have to be the one to lower my standards to make things happen? When I tried to do that, they didn’t want it. You wanted to stay behind the castle. They wanted to stay over there in England. So stay your ass over there. Now you’re in my country. You were a big fish in a small pond. Now you’re here. I’m a big fish in a big pond. You got nowhere to go, and now you want me to come see you. Man,” Wilder said about Joshua.
Wilder doesn’t want to lower himself to get Joshua fight
What Wilder is saying is that he doesn’t want to have to grovel in order to get the fight with Joshua. Wilder feels that he deserves an equal deal, and he isn’t interested in playing Eddie Hearn’s A-side games just so he can fight Joshua in a unification. Hearn has been trying hard to get Wilder to agree to the deals that he’s been offering him, but it hasn’t worked. Hearn is even looking to use Dillian Whyte as a way of pressuring Wilder to fight Joshua. Hearn went to the World Boxing Council recently and asked them to make the Whyte vs. Oscar Rivas fight a final eliminator. If Hearn gets his way, Wilder would have to fight Whyte in his next match. Knowing that Wilder won’t want to do this, Hearn is hoping the WBC will give his way by ordering the Wilder vs. Breazeale to fight the Whyte-Rivas, which figures to be Whyte.
Hearn is crossing his fingters that Joshua can expand his base in the U.S in the same way Lennox Lewis did in coming over from England to fight in the U.S during the 1990s and the early 2000s. The other idea behind Joshua fighting in the U.S is to create pressure on Wilder to agree to fight him Wilder doesn’t need pressure in order to fight Joshua. He needs his 50% of the revenue. That’s what’s been keeping the Joshua vs. Wilder fight from taking place. A year ago, Hearn was talking flat fees for Wilder. Hearn saw Wilder as worth $12 million flat fee. The fight wasn’t going to get made with Hearn only willing to offer flat fees. When Hearn finally different start offering Wilder a percentage deal, he got stuck at 60-40, which is just a little bit better than the deal that former WBO champion Joseph Parker got to fight Joshua in 2018.
”Mentally I’m strong. I’m ready to go,” Wilder said about his fight against Breazeale on Saturday night. ”I’ve got all these things like interviews before the fight, but it’s part of it. My mindset is so strong. I can handle all these things. If anyone is the right guy for the job, it’s myself. Breazeale asked for this. He came to my city. Anyone knows me knows that when I’m in a fight, I don’t mean well for my opponents anyway. When you make it personal for me now, I really want to hurt you. The last person I felt this way about was Bermane Stiverne. We saw what happened to him. Even the second time around. This is even more intensified for me. I’m the man with the big right hand, baby. I possess all the power. I’m the most dangerous heavyweight in the business, period. To this day! So I’m not worried about anything,” Wilder said about his fight with Breazeale.