Ahead of his ring return against an in-form Robert Helenius, Deontay Wilder has spoken on the future and what big fights he might feature in.
‘The Bronze Bomber’ will have been out of action for over a year when he faces Helenius on October 15. But, now that he’s officially back following a spell considering retirement, his has found itself on fighter’s hit lists.
Asked what the biggest fight was in the division, business-wise, Wilder included himself and names a few potential opponents. FightHype.com captured the answer.
“Man we’ve got a lot of great fights out there. They’ve been talking about the Usyk thing. Like I said, I’m not looking past anyone. You’ve got the Ruiz fight – that’s going to be huge as well. You know, Joshua. Everybody’s still out there.”
“When you have an exciting [former] heavyweight champion everything else comes back to life. People get the interest back in it, the money goes up for all the fighters. I’ve had many fighters [say] ‘man come back, we need you back.’ Only the future can tell what it holds, but I think the future is bright and there’s a lot of things in store for the boxing fans in general.”
Usyk has said he may be in attendance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next month to watch Wilder attempt to add to his impressive knockout record. The Ukrainian champion has expressed an interest in the fight now that an undisputed clash with Tyson Fury looks unlikely in the immediate future.
Andy Ruiz is coming off a decision victory over Luis Ortiz – a man Wilder has beaten twice. With both former champions being PBC fighters, it seems the easiest of the three to make. Whether it’s the biggest business fight in the division is debatable.
As for Joshua, it’s a match-up some might say that’s passed its sell-by date. At one point in the not so distant past, Wilder could’ve faced ‘AJ’ for all the heavyweight belts. Talks fell through again and again. Having said that, and despite the lack of titles, the fight is still undoubtedly still intriguing.
These musings are all well and good, but Wilder has to come through Helenius first. After all, the three fights mentioned certainly won’t be as profitable if he loses, and in some cases won’t even be considered. It’s hard to come back from a comeback – so Wilder will rightly be focusing on finishing the Finnish fighter first.