Despite them having never shared a ring before, there is something strangely familiar about the Deontay Wilder vs. Derek Chisora fight mooted for April. Sometimes, that just happens when certain fights are made. Even if you know better, it is quite easy to convince yourself that two fighters – in this case Wilder and Chisora – have history and are serving up the same unsatisfactory meal you have already eaten.
Why that is, I’m still not quite sure. But with these two, Wilder and Chisora, you are dealing with a couple of veteran heavyweights who have between them a combined 98 professional fights (49 apiece). In the time it took to gather that impressive number of fights, they fought pretty much everybody you would expect them to fight – between them – and only Anthony Joshua remains a notable omission from their two records. They both, for instance, fought Tyson Fury not once, not twice, but three times. That’s six fights – five defeats, one draw – and six training camps which perhaps could have been put to better use. Perhaps, had Wilder and Chisora not become so preoccupied with Fury, they could have turned to each other at an earlier juncture and said: “How about it?”
As it is, they missed the boat, and now, as we start 2026, Wilder is 40 years of age, and Chisora is 42. Both, it goes without saying, have seen better days. Yet both are also counting the days, fearful of them soon running out. It’s for that reason they have taken the “better late than never” approach and now find themselves on course, according to reports, for a fight in April.
It's not a fight anybody has asked for, nor one anybody really wants to see. But then again, that’s not the point. For Wilder and Chisora the only thing that matters is that they tick the last remaining boxes they have left to tick. If that means fighting each other to both make money and prolong their careers, so be it. Even if other options are available to them, this is one option not yet taken and therefore “new” in the context of two careers most consider to be worn out and old.
There is a comfort, too, in knowing that Wilder and Chisora will meet at a time convenient for them – when at a similar stage in their respective careers. It would have been nice, yes, if they had thought to get together sooner, but at least now, in 2026, they have a similar level of degradation and desperation. The only difference, I suppose, is how they wear it.
With Chisora, losing four of five fights between 2020 and 2022 seemed to signal the beginning of the end, only for him to defy those calling for his retirement and carry on. Not only that, he dropped down a level and then found his form again. Since the start of 2023 he has beaten Gerald Washington, Joe Joyce and Otto Wallin in consecutive fights and been touted as the B-side to all manner of big-name heavyweights in recent months. Given where he once was, that’s quite the turnaround, you have to admit. No wonder “The Last Dance” has become a continuous one.
As for Wilder, his demise was always likely to be swifter and more dramatic, and so it has proved. Unlike Chisora, he is unable to disguise his deterioration with toughness and therefore we see it all on show. We see him crumble against Fury twice in a row and then, worse, we see a similar collapse against Zhilei Zhang, when Wilder was stopped in five rounds. Between those defeats, we also see Wilder struggle to pull the trigger – a sure-fire sign of The End – in the company of Joseph Parker, the New Zealand heavyweight who outpointed Wilder in 2023. That, in many ways, was a more damning loss than the stoppages to Fury and Zhang. After all, it was always expected that a fighter like Wilder would go down swinging when the time came. What we didn’t expect was for him to instead sleepwalk through a fight and appear cautious and even hesitant to throw his devastating right hand. “Without that, what is there?” we asked ourselves after Parker beat him. “What else does he have left to give?”
At this stage it’s not about what they have to give. It’s more about what they have to take. This is certainly true of Chisora, who makes no bones about it, and we also know it is true of Wilder. That’s why he and Chisora keep touting themselves as willing opponents for world champions and why, let’s face it, they fight into their forties.
Wilder’s seventh-round stoppage of Tyrrell Herndon in June did little for his legacy, but that was never its purpose. All he wanted from that fight, it seemed, was to get another victory on his record and remind people of what it looks like when Deontay Wilder wins a fight. Before that night, he had lost four of his last five fights – similar to Chisora’s 2020-2022 run. In fact, there is every chance that Wilder has looked at the way Chisora has managed to reinvent himself, and more importantly find some form, after a 1-5 slump and taken some inspiration from it.
Because he knows, as well as Chisora knows, that it’s now just about sticking in there and staying relevant. Do that and you never know, you might get your chance. You might get a title shot. You might make lots of money. Better yet, if you continue to believe, it is possible to keep retirement, this opponent they both fear, at arm’s length.
For as long as they are winning fights, Wilder and Chisora, the calls for them to quit will be silenced. That means that in April, should they share a ring, one of them, by virtue of winning, will be granted a further stay of execution. They could even do it again. And again.
Elliot Worsell is a boxing writer whose byline first appeared in Boxing News magazine at the age of 17. He has, in the 20 years since, written for various publications, worked as press officer for two world heavyweight champions and won four first-place BWAA (Boxing Writers Association of America) awards. In addition to his boxing writing, Worsell has written about mixed martial arts for Fighters Only magazine and UFC.com, as well as worked as a publicist for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He has also written two non-fiction books, one of which, “Dog Rounds,” was shortlisted at the British Sports Book Awards in 2018.
