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Apparently, Deontay Wilder is still eyeing a fight with Anthony Joshua, despite his bad blood.
In a recent interview, the former heavyweight from Tuscaloosa, Alabama stated that his interest in a fight with Londoner Joshua, also a former champion, remains high. Apparently, the two were involved in serious negotiations in 2018, but their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. Both sides have since accused the other of botching those talks.
Wilder, who was considering retiring from the sport after his knockout loss to Tyson Fury in his trilogy almost a year ago, will return to the ring against Robert Helenius on October 15 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Coupled with Wilder’s return and Joshua’s recent loss to unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, there has apparently been talk of a Wilder-Joshua fight in the boxing world again.
“I mean, right now we’re managing what we have to do here. I mean, at the end of the day, like I said, I’m back, so there are no fights that aren’t negotiable or won’t exist,” Wilder told Brian Custer on The Last Stand Podcast. “It doesn’t matter how I feel or how they feel. Because I can always run back into the past, like I said, like the saying goes, I may not remember your name, but I’ll never forget how you made me feel.”
Negotiations with Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn in 2018 had apparently left a sour taste in Wilder’s mouth. In the interview with Custer, Wilder referred to the $50 million guaranteed offer his team, which includes manager Shelly Finkel and adviser Al Haymon, had made to Joshua. Wilder said he had even “lowered” his purse to further incentivize Joshua to take the fight, but to no avail.
“When we tried to make that fight happen, they ran from us,” Wilder said. “I don’t make up lies. People can believe what they want, whatever, but I see it today, I still stand on 10 toes on everything. They know it too. I even downgraded to a flat $12 million. You understand me? Why give a champion who hasn’t even proven himself 33%?
“You tell me a guarantee of $ 50 million and the main thing that your promoter [says], ‘Oh, he’s from Alabama. ‘Mother—–, this guy from Alabama will never have to fight a day again, how about that? What about that? What about that?
Hearn, at the time, expressed skepticism about the $50 million deal, calling it a “PR move” and saying he needed more information about the origin of the proposed bag. Hearn would offer Wilder the following year with a $100 million, three-fight offer to appear on DAZN, which Wilder ended up turning down in order to retain his free agent status and because he felt Hearn and company were fundamentally “rogue.”
Hearn and Wilder recently exchanged words through the press after it was revealed that Hearn had once again tried to contact Wilder’s team to fight Joshua ahead of Joshua’s scheduled rematch with Usyk. Wilder saw Hearn’s proposed offer as nothing more than a way to secure Joshua’s loss to Usyk.
However, Wilder said that as long as he and Joshua are still active, a fight between them only makes sense.
“But, you know, like I said, I’m still in this business,” Wilder said. “If he (Joshua) is still in the business and I am still in the business, of course some things can happen. We’ll see what happens. The future is bright. I am willing and able for anyone and everyone in the heavyweight division. You know what I want to say? I want to make that perfectly clear. I still want to kick that butt too.”
Joshua is currently in negotiations with champion Fury for an all-British WBC title showdown in December. It was announced on Tuesday that Joshua had agreed to all of Fury’s terms and was awaiting a response.
Meanwhile, Wilder won’t be short of attractive options. Besides Helenius, Wilder has a few other suitors who can fight him inside the ring. One includes Andy Ruiz, a management teammate. When asked if it would be easier to make a fight between Joshua or Ruiz, Wilder pointed to the California-born Mexican-American.
“Andy Ruiz, for sure,” Wilder admitted. “For the simple fact, as he said, we are with the same people. When you [are] dealing with the same people is always easier than when dealing with someone else, especially someone from a different country and stuff like that, you know.”
Still, Wilder wants to make it clear that he’s still interested in fighting Joshua; the question, for Wilder, is whether Joshua feels the same way.
“Now we don’t have a choice, maybe,” Wilder said of a matchup with Joshua. “We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see. I’m not going to steal from the fans who don’t make that fight happen. I definitely want that fight to happen. I just want to know if they’re real.”
