Matchroom chairman, Eddie Hearn, told reporters this week that Anthony Joshua could bounce back from injury and a tragic car accident by using American puncher Deontay Wilder as “a warm up” ahead of a super-fight with Tyson Fury later in the year, or early next.
Wilder continued his own comeback on April 4 when he twice dropped Derek Chisora in a feral fire-fight that saw the British slugger’s team risk disqualification because of various infractions. With the victory, Wilder likely booked himself a payday against Joshua, Francis Ngannou, or Jake Paul.
One source Boxing Social spoke to recently, who has worked with Wilder before, even indicated that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the Tuscaloosa banger bypass those three fighters and head straight into a world title fight against the unified champion, Oleksandr Usyk, once the Ukraine king is done with his crossover spectacle involving the kickboxing icon Rico Verhoeven, in May.
Regardless of the route Wilder goes down, one thing is clear: he has the kind of options now that he never had just a couple of years ago having suffered back-to-back defeats against Zhilei Zhang and Joseph Parker in post-prime performances that suggested he was struggling to pull the trigger on his more powerful punches.
But he now has two wins in a row, including the latest over Chisora, and the industry has sat up and take notice.
“We need a warm-up fight before we fight Tyson Fury,” Hearn told reporters this week, in footage filmed by Fight Hub. “Because AJ is coming off the accident, he’s rehabilitating his body, etc.”
“We will take Deontay Wilder as that warm-up fight.”
“Then we’ll fight Tyson in December.”
He added: “I was sitting in the front row [of the Wilder vs Chisora fight], and by the way I respect Wilder and I think he looked much better in that fight than he has done previously.
“But let me tell you, as I was six feet away, Anthony Joshua will walk through Wilder in three rounds.”
