Deontay Wilder has claimed that people tried to “lock him in as insurance” in a previous fight deal with Anthony Joshua after his second defeat to Oleksandr Usyk.
The former WBC heavyweight champion watched as the Brit lost to the Ukrainian in their rematch at the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.
Joshua took on Usyk in a money-spinning return as he looked to regain the WBA Super, IBF, IBO and WBO titles and become a three-time world champion.
But Wilder, who has previously held talks with the Briton on multiple occasions, revealed that the 32-year-old – who was oupointed on a split by Usyk who picked up the vacant Ring Magazine title in the sport’s premier division after it was relinquished by Tyson Fury – and his team had made an attempt to secure a deal with him.
He took to social media in the aftermath and said
“They tried to lock me in for insurance because they knew he wasn’t going to [w]in. This is strictly a business, Not a sport there’s a [difference].”
They tried to lock me in for insurance because they knew he wasn’t going to Win. This is strictly a business, Not a sport there’s a different.
— Deontay Wilder (@BronzeBomber) August 20, 2022
‘The Bronze Bomber’ insisted that this was because Joshua’s team knew he was going to lose against the Ukrainian and would have no chance at an undisputed fight with Tyson Fury.
It is likely that Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs), who returns to the ring at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, against Robert Helenius on October 15, was referring to a series of failed negotiations he had previously with Team Joshua when the Brit held all the belts and Wilder had the green and gold bauble currently in the custody of Tyson Fury.
Eddie Hearn, the Matchroom head honcho who has promoted Joshua since his debut back in October 2013, had offered Wilder a deal worth around $12.5million to secure the bout after ‘AJ’ unified the division once again when beating Joseph Parker.
Wilder surprised Hearn with a mammoth counter-offer of $50million for Joshua who elected to reject the offer but it didn’t initially shut down the fight as he went on to face then-WBA mandatory Alexander Povetkin.
Fury was next for Wilder and the pair shared three epic fights, with the former cleaning out the latter on two occasions after a contentious draw in their first meeting back in December 2018 in Los Angeles.
The aforementioned Hearn revealed, before Joshua’s second defeat to Usyk on Saturday, that he had made an offer to Wilder with a large cash pot available and now there remains a heightened possibility of the pair meeting with Joshua left far away from settling his rivalry with Fury, who is targeting an undisputed clash with Usyk.