By Charles Brun: Deontay Wilder wants Anthony Joshua’s scalp as soon as he finishes dealing with Tyson Fury on July 24th in a fight that the ‘Gyspy King’ was trying to avoid. As long as Joshua doesn’t get cold feet, we could be seeing him take on the 6’7″ Deontay in December if everything goes smoothly.
Joshua vs. Wilder would be a HUGE fight for the world, bigger than Joshua-Fury, which would only have been a big clash for the UK fans but not for Americans.
The Wilder-Joshua fight is bigger because the fans from both the U.S and UK will be eager to see it. It won’t be a one-country deal like the Joshua vs. Fury fight would have been.
The only thing that stands in the way of Wilder vs. Joshua from taking place is the interim fights for both guys. Deontay needs to take care of Tyson Fury on July 24th in Las Vegas, while IBF/WBA/WBO champion Joshua has a pesky fight against his WBO mandatory Oleksandr Usyk that he needs to get out of the way.
The former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) could take the fight with Joshua that Fury was hoping to get recently.
You can only imagine how upset the Fury clan will be if Deontay destroys him and then take on Joshua for the big pot of gold in December. Fury would have gotten $60 million to $80 million for the Joshua fight if he’d been allowed to circumvent his contractual rematch with Deontay.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) and Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) were scheduled to fight on August 14th, but the fight was foiled by the U.S arbitrator, who ruled in Deontay’s favor for his trilogy with the 6’9″ ‘Gypsy King.’
Deontay confident of beating Fury to get Joshua
“I’m very confident in what I am going to do. I’m strongly confident in what I’m about to do,” said Deontay Wilder to Premier Boxing Champions. “How the hell will they beat a full, healthy Deontay Wilder?
“Once I get through Fury, once I do that? You already know what I want.
“But, as I’m hearing, [Joshua and his team] are already making up excuses – mandatories,” said Wilder. “I want them to keep that same energy because they tried to make the Fury fight.”
To play it safe, Joshua should consider dumping the WBO strap and then take an easy voluntary defense against someone like Hughie Fury and then face Deontay in December.
Believe me; no one will care if Joshua vacates the WBO title and swerves the low-level fight against the light-hitting Usyk.
There’s no interest in the Usyk fight anyway, and it would just be an annoying situation of Joshua needing to negotiate the match and chase him around the ring.
Fighting Hughie would set the table for an eventual fight between Joshua and Fury later on down the line. It would be a good marketing thing with Fury wanting to avenge the loss of one of his family members, blah-blah-blah.