Two-time heavyweight champion of the world, Anthony Joshua, has reassured fans that he still expects to fight Deontay Wilder, after years of talk.
It wasn’t long ago that ‘AJ’ and Wilder were on the verge of one of the all-time heavyweight classics. The pair looked set to fight to crown the first ever undisputed, four-belt, heavyweight champion. However, as we have seen so often during modern boxing, politics got in the way of the fight never materialised. Since then, both men have lost their titles and suffered two defeats, but the public interest is still clearly there.
The fact that neither man now holds a belt undoubtedly makes a deal easier. In an interview with iFL TV, Joshua seemed certain that the fight is going to happen.
“I feel like it is another conversation that we don’t have to have, because it will happen, and I think it is long overdue. It’s been a conversation that has been happening for a long time. For me to sit here and say, ‘it is going to happen, it is going to happen’, it would feel like I am just waffling again. When it does [happen], it does, and it will.”
“That is just me certifying it, I don’t need to sit here and talk about it and go on and on and on, because I’ve been in that realm before, where we spoke about it and it didn’t materialise. When it materialises, it will happen, I’m confident.”
For now, Joshua must first face a different American, as he fights Jermaine Franklin on April 1st at the O2 Arena, with the aim of bouncing back from successive defeats for the first time in his career, with the help of new trainer, Derrick James.