Deontay Wilder may be the ideal representative for the forthcoming “bridgerweight” weight class, but the former heavyweight titleholder swears he will have no truck with it.
The division, the brainchild of the WBC and its president Mauricio Sulaiman, was born out of a desire to give the sport’s less lefty heavyweights, as well as cruiserweights, a better chance to win a heavyweight title in a division in which most of its top participants currently walk around north of 250 pounds. That includes the likes of Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Andy Ruiz Jr. With parameters of 200-224 pounds, the bridgerweight division, it would seem, is tailor-made for someone like Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s Wilder, who has often weighed in less than 220 pounds throughout his career.
Just don’t expect Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) to necessarily agree.
“I understand that people have have to make money and this is a way to create a way for people to make people with these belts but…as a fighter that’s in it I don’t understand all these different weight classes and stuff like that,” Wilder told Brian Custer on a recent episode of The Last Stand Podcast.
“If it’s specifically designed for me to be the face of it, you know, I decline.”
The highest Wilder weighed in for a fight was in his last bout against Tyson Fury last February, in which he clocked in at 231 pounds. He was 207 1/4 pounds in his debut back in 2008.
“My career is to be a heavyweight and that’s what I got in for and that’s what I’m going to end with. Guys always outweighed me.. In my last fight I was 231, so far as putting on weight that’s not a difficult part for me.”
Wilder believes he would, in fact, have a dangerous competitive advantage over his peers in the bridgerweight division, given that he has routinely knocked out heavyweights far heavier than himself, including, most recently, Luis Ortiz (241 1/4 in the first fight) and Dominic Breazeale (255 pounds),
“As for as going down in weight my power makes up for all of that,” said Wilder. “If they really want me hurt someone and smash the head into an avocado then be my guest. I have too much power for a weight class that low. I’m already knocking guys out that weigh 50 pounds heavier than me, 30 pounds heavier than me, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go lower than what I am. I should be exempt for that. But that’s just my opinion.”