By Jake Donovan
Until they all begin to fight each other, Anthony Joshua has embraced the reality of constantly being asked about Deontay Wilder—and, to a lesser degree, Tyson Fury—at every turn.
The unbeaten, unified heavyweight titlist from England prepares for his long-awaited United States debut, which comes versus California’s Andy Ruiz this Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. As was the case with the pre-fight buildup to Deontay Wilder’s May 18 mandatory title defense versus Dominic Breazeale, more questions are being asked about a clash between the two heavyweights with all of the divisional hardware than any other fight they currently have scheduled.
Such was the case for Joshua’s appearance on ESPN First Take, which was booked by the heavyweight’s handlers as means to promote the fight fight. Instead, he was reminded of comments made by his two unbeaten divisional peers. The greater interest of the two involves Wilder, especially in light of his recent sensational 1st round knockout of Breazeale.
“I’ve tried to fight Anthony Joshua five times,” Wilder stated during his recent visit to First Take which came ahead of his fight versus Breazeale, and which was replayed for Joshua’s benefit. “You don’t need to go nowhere (outside of the United Kingdom), yeah. Now he’s coming to my country, he’s not even fighting the champion. He’s fighting lower opposition.”
As was the case when he was shown a clip of Fury criticizing his credentials, all that the unified champ could was laugh it off and offer his own take.
“Why sit here and talk more about it when we can settle it up in the ring,” Joshua (22-0, 21KOs) noted, choosing to focus more on how to make the fight happen than over why it hasn’t yet materialized. “Deontay Wilder, when you’re ready come see, Don’t come through your promoters and managers. Come see me. Let’s prove who is the man of the division.”
Most have rated Joshua as the top-rated heavyweight at least since his off-the-canvas knockout win of former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in April 2017.
Their back and forth thriller—which was hailed as 2017 Fight of the Year—came right on time. Wilder’s title reign hadn’t yet reached the heights to which it soared in 2018. Meanwhile, Fury was all but done with the game following his dethroning of Klitschko to win the World heavyweight championship in Nov. 2015, spending the next two-plus years battling drug and alcohol addiction and severe mental health issues.
Fury’s self-inflicted exile from the sport left Joshua and Wilder as the top two heavyweights in the world, both frequently fighting on American cable giant Showtime during the same time period. A clash between the two seemed natural, but never advanced beyond talks.
Joshua’s last fight on Showtime came last March, when he scored a 12-round win over then-unbeaten Joseph Parker in their title unification clash. Four week prior, Wilder survived a stiff challenge from then-unbeaten Luis Ortiz to score a 10th round knockout in their thrilling Fight of the Year contender.
From there, the two went their separate ways. Wilder remained with Showtime, where he fought to a 12-round draw with Fury (who returned last June) in their thriller last December followed by his knockout over Breazeale. Joshua helped launch the DAZN USA streaming model with his 7th round knockout of Alexander Povetkin last September and fights for the second time on the platform with Saturday’s clash versus Ruiz (32-1, 21KOs).
Most of the questions of Wilder and Joshua from the media in recent weeks have been far more about the other than for the fighters they were/are scheduled to face. From those questions have surfaced all of the ugliness which transpired from past efforts to get the two in the ring—most recently, DAZN offering Wilder a multi-fight, nine-figure package which he declined in favor of maintaining his present scenario of being able to call his own shots.
Troubling to the Joshua side, however, is the fact that Wilder has has announced two fights in the span of a few days. Earlier in the week he announced that a deal had been finalized to face Luis Ortiz in a September rematch, and on Friday he revealed that another deal had been struck to face Tyson Fury in rematch - and that fight is likely going to land in the spring of 2020.
“You can’t say that I’m not (trying to fight) these guys if I’m offering them fights and they turn them down,” points out Joshua. “I know what’s real, I know what’s facts. The offers have been made. I’m here. Opinions are opinions.
“With that being said, it’s why I’ve said it would be good for me and Wilder to sit down and talk. It’s important for me and Wilder to talk man to man and make this happen. You look at the situation with Ortiz. We offered the deal, the promoter turned it down and then Ortiz said he wanted the fight. All this back and forth only makes it confusing.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
