By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder is the second-best heavyweight in the world, and he’ll knock out Anthony Joshua, states Tyson Fury. The WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) says he’s not worried at all about the threat that IBF/WBA/WBO champion Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) presents to him because he just finished beating the #2 heavyweight in the division in Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) last February.
Fury and Wilder will be fighting later this year in November or December. Fury must beat Wilder for the second time so that he can face AJ in the first half of next year.
Whyte won’t be facing Fury in early 2021
Fury says he’s not going to be fighting his WBC mandatory Dillian Whyte before he faces Joshua twice. So if the WBC tries to push obligation onto Fury in facing Whyte, it’s not happening. If the WBC makes that move, they’ll likely lose Fury as their champion, which would be a huge blow.
That would mean that the World Boxing Council wouldn’t be a part of the two Joshua vs. Fury fights in 2021. Instead, they would have Whyte as their champion, and he’s not a huge draw.
With Wilder, he’s got the power to knock out Fury or anyone in the heavyweight division, but he’s got to be able to land his shots clean. In their second fight, Wilder failed to catch Fury with the perfect shot to get him out of there.
Wilder knocks out Joshua says Fury
“Wilder’s the second-best heavyweight in the world. I believe he knocks Joshua out and everybody else. People think, ‘Oh if you just go forward on Wilder, you’ll knock him out.’ The fact of the matter is, I wasn’t just going forward,” said Fury to Lockdown Lowdown.
It’s debatable whether Wilder is a better fighter than Joshua. Right now, few boxing fans would agree with Fury’s statement that the 6’7″ Wilder would knock out Joshua. More fans would agree with Fury that Wilder is the better fighter than AJ if he hadn’t looked so bad in losing to him.
What we can say is if Wilder hits Joshua with one of his best punches, he’s capable of stopping him in the same way he did with Dominic Breazeale. Joshua doesn’t have the best chin, and he’s probably not going to hold up long getting hit with huge shots from Wilder.
It’s all hypothetical right now on Wilder beating Joshua. If ‘The Bronze Bomber’ loses to Fury in their trilogy match this year, that’s probably the end Wilder ever being considered for a fight with Joshua. Unless Wilder was able to come back from the loss, his career would be effectively finished, and he could forget about getting selected by Joshua and his management for a clash.
Fury is himself a lot of credit for his seventh-round knockout win over the previously unbeaten Wilder in their second fight on February 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Wilder did land a few big bombs in that fight, but he missed several shots that had knockout written all over them.
Fury: Matchroom could be done once Joshua gets beat
“Once you take Anthony Joshua out of Matchroom, Matchroom doesn’t really have a great anything,” said Fury. “The actual cash dogs that will make money on pay-per-views is Joshua for them. So if you take that away, there’s not much left.
“There are some good guys and some good prospects, but not pay-per-view stares or sellable stars on pay-per-view. If he [Joshua] gets beat, and they know he will, it almost puts an end to their big-time promoting,” said Fury.
Eddie Hearn and his Matchroom Boxing promotional company will still do exceptionally well if Joshua loses TWICE to Fury in 2021. Joshua can even beat most of the heavyweights in the division, and he’ll continue to be a huge draw.
Where Joshua’s career could end is if Hearn puts him in with someone young like Filip Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois, and he loses to one or both of those guys. When Joshua starts losing to the young lions, then that’ll be the beginning of the end.
It’ll be similar to how Evander Holyfield’s popularity began to drop off after he was beaten by Lennox Lewis, John Ruiz, and Chris Byrd. At first, the fans stuck with Holyfield and still wanted to see him fight after his defeat against Lewis. But when Ruiz and Byrd beat Holyfield, then his popularity plummeted. We could see that with Joshua.
Hearn needs to find a replacement for Joshua
It’s still essential for Matchroom to find someone that can replace the 30-year-old Joshua as the next pay-per-view star for their stable. Joshua is entering into a stage of his career where he could see his popularity begin to decline. And Joshua already lost to Andy Ruiz Jr. last year, and he didn’t look so great in avenging his loss.
Joshua was lucky to lose to Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, and he probably would have had the Ukrainian fighter not played it safe after knocking him down.
Hearn does have some good fighters in his Matchroom stable, but none of them have resulted in the British boxing fans showing colossal interest. Hrgovic is a good heavyweight, and he probably would beat Whyte without any problems.
But the UK fans might not adopt Hrgovic as one of their own because he’s not from Great Britain. Hearn needs someone that is homegrown, and preferably a heavyweight.
