Deontay: People are begging for Wilder-Joshua

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) says the boxing public is absolutely begging for a unification fight between him and IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) to take place. Wilder, 6’7”, says he wants to give the fans what they want to see so that he can show them who the best heavyweight is in the division. Wilder says the winner of the Wilder-Joshua fight will be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world; although there would still be one world title out there not in Deontay’s grasp and that’s the WBO belt held by Joseph Parker.

According to Deontay, the British boxing fans go overboard when hyping their fighters. Wilder didn’t specifically point out Joshua as a fighter the Brits are going overboard about, but one gets the sense that’s exactly who he’s refereeing to. The British fans have hyped Joshua like mad without him having proven himself.

As we saw in Joshua’s recent life and death struggle with 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, he’s not very good for someone with all the hype surrounding him from his boxing fans from England. Wladimir looked like the better fighter until the 11th round, when he got hurt by an uppercut from Joshua and quickly stopped after being dropped.

Wladimir could have knocked Joshua out earlier in the fight in the 6th or 7th rounds if he’d pressed the attack. Wladimir’s safety first fighting style held him back, causing him to play it safe at the moment when he needed to press on ahead and finish the job. You’d better believe that if the shoe was on the other foot and Deontay was in the same situation as Wladimir, he’d have put the coup de grace in and finished off the TOTALLY exhausted and badly hurt Joshua. Wilder likely would have laid Joshua out pretty on the canvas after smashing him with a right hand to the head.

“I’m blessed to have power that rules the division,” said Deontay to fighthype.com. “I can’t wait to give people what they’re looking for so long. People been begging for Wilder and Joshua, especially the British fans. They over-exaggerate a lot, which is OK. I like a country that stands behind they people. I’m the only American champion. If I was fighting for another country, I’d probably own that country. That’s all going to change soon…It’s going to be crazy. I’m about to take over, man. I’m about to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,” said Wilder

I think there are a massive amount of boxing fans from all over the world that would love to see Wilder and Joshua get it on in 2017. Unfortunately for Wilder, he’s going to need to wait a while before he can get Joshua inside the ring, because he’s got to give Wladimir a rematch. The big 6’6” Ukrainian has a rematch clause with his contract from his previous fight against Wilder, and he’s almost surely going to invoke it. There’s too much money in a second fight between Joshua and Wladimir for the Ukrainian star to walk away without taking a second fight. Also, Wladimir saw how close he came to beating Joshua last time.

Wladimir was within an eyelash of knocking Joshua out. He didn’t do it, but he came real close to doing the job on him. In a rematch, Wladimir will improve on the mistakes he made from the first fight. I wish I could say the same thing for Joshua. I think we saw the best that Joshua can do. I cannot see Joshua improving over what he did before. Joshua is slow, wild, raw, and he’s got TERRIBLE stamina. Joshua looked like an unskilled 5-round fighter against Wladimir.

The only reason that Joshua was able oi come back late in the fight to get the ‘W’ was because Wladimir slowed the pace of the fight down enough to where Joshua was able to get his second wind. It was very lucky for Joshua that the referee stepped in and stopped the fight when he did, because if he had let it go on, Wladimir might have been able to recover and come back strong.

Joshua looked completely exhausted when the fight was halted in round 11. Joshua looked gassed out in the same way he was in the 5th round. In that round, Joshua knocked Wladimir out, but then quickly emptied his tank when he couldn’t get the Ukrainian out of there. What we learned from watching Joshua is that he can’t fight a full three minutes without tiring badly. It’s not a big deal for a heavyweight to get tired when throw of punches during a round. That’s kind of common. Wladimir used to gas out too earlier in his career until he learned how to pace himself properly.

What made Joshua look so bad is the fact that he stayed gassed out for a full 3 rounds after 5th. For Joshua to take 3 rounds to get his second wind right away, it’s more than a little troubling and it doesn’t bode well for his future prospects. Many of Joshua’s boxing fans tried saying that this was the first time he ever gassed out in a fight before during his pro career. I hate to be the one that drizzles on their parade, but this wasn’t the first time Joshua faded early in his fights.

Joshua also gassed out in the 2nd round of his fight against Dillian Whyte in 2015. Joshua got tired during the 2nd round and was staggered by Whyte. It was lucky for Joshua that Whyte injured his left hook in that round, because he likely would have knocked Joshua out in the 3rd. Just like with the Klitschko fight, it took Joshua 3 rounds to recover from gassing out. Joshua didn’t regain his strength until the 5th round. He was helped by the fact that Whyte wasn’t attacking because of his shoulder injury.

“We’ll do well over 90,000,” said Wilder about a fight against Joshua in the UK. ”We’ll sell out in 15 minutes. 100,000 [fans] [will see the fight]. Even with this fight [Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko], people were still saying, ‘Joshua-Wilder. Joshua-Wilder.’ I can’t wait because it’s going to be crazy. There will be an undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and his name is Deontay Wilder,” said Deontay.

I don’t know if Joshua-Wilder will sell to the extent of the Joshua-Klitschko fight. I have doubts that Joshua vs. Wilder sells big in the UK. The only reason Joshua vs. Klitschko sold well is because Wladimir had been a heavyweight world champion for a 10 year period until losing his belts to Tyson Fury in 2015. Joshua-Wilder will sell decent numbers, but not the huge numbers that we saw with the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight. I think it’s still too soon for Wilder and Joshua to fight.

Deontay needs to fight over in the UK against one of their top fighters so the British boxing fans can see him in action. If Deontay can take Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora’s scalps, then I think that would sell up the Joshua fight in a big way for a mega-fight. Without Wilder taking some scalps from the UK ahead of the Joshua fight, I think it won’t be a big fight when he does eventually face Joshua. Wilder would have to be considered the favorite to beat Joshua right now after the way the way he fought against Klitschko.