By Keith Idec
Deontay Wilder isn’t quite sure how long it’ll take to get Anthony Joshua to agree to a heavyweight title unification fight.
Wilder believes, however, that Joshua eventually will fight him and grant him a chance to add to his WBC heavyweight title. The knockout artist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, hasn’t gotten the same vibe from Joseph Parker.
Wilder thinks Parker, the WBO heavyweight champion, will avoid fighting him at all costs.
“I think it’ll be easier to get Joshua than Parker,” Wilder told BoxingScene.com. “Parker is the scaredest of them all. He don’t want it. My thing is if you come in this thing talking about how you wanna fight the best, then please do fight the best. Y’all came to my city, talked to me for several days, talked to my people for several days, not only in person, but on the phone, for nothing. For nothing, when y’all know you didn’t want me. You thought you did, but you came to the fight and you saw me knock this guy out like I did, and you don’t want it no more.”
The 32-year-old Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) referred to New Zealand’s Parker attending his last fight, a fifth-round technical knockout victory over Gerald Washington (18-2-1, 12 KOs) on February 25 in Birmingham, Alabama.
Parker attended that card primarily to support his close friend Izu Ugonoh, who lost by fifth-round knockout to Dominic Breazeale (18-1, 16 KOs). Poland’s Ugonoh (17-1, 14 KOs) and Parker are trained at the same Las Vegas gym by Kevin Barry.
“I’m gonna have to stop all these champions and these top contenders from coming to my fights,” Wilder said. “Because when they do, they see what they thought they want is not what they really want. Their eyes play tricks on them from afar, but when they come in person it’s a whole, totally different story. But sooner or later, whether Joshua gets his belt and I fight Joshua, or I get his belt and fight Joshua, either way, Parker’s gonna be gone soon.”
Based on what he has heard from Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs), the IBF/IBO/WBA champion, and Parker (24-0, 18 KOs), Wilder doesn’t get the sense a unification fight would be next for him if he beats Bermane Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs) in their rematch Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York (Showtime; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).
“There’s two men that I want so bad, and it’s Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker,” Wilder said. “I wanna unify the division so bad. That’s my ultimate goal. I don’t care about how much money it is, the buildup, this and that – that all plays a part in it. But my sole feeling is I want those belts. I wanna unify, but I don’t think these guys wanna do the same thing. They talk the talk, but they don’t wanna walk it. Especially with Joseph Parker. He came and said he wants the best and all this.
“He even came to my fight for nothing, but he really don’t want that. He is no threat at all. He’s not a dangerous fighter. He’s at the bottom of the champions that’s fighting second-tier fighters. He wanna stay out of harm’s way for as long as possible and it’s sad. But I want both of those guys, man. I want them so bad to unify this division. That’s all I wanna do is unify. And then, after that everybody can line up.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
