WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) is crossing his fingers that Anthony Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs), holder of the WBA, IBF, IBO, WBO titles, will make good on his recent statements.
In a recent interview, Joshua explained that he would look to do a lot of damage to Wilder in the early rounds of a potential fight.
The two camps are currently in serious negotiations for a highly anticipated unification in the coming months.
Both boxers are very big punchers.
Wilder is widely viewed as the bigger puncher of the two - but Joshua cautioned those experts that he was prepared to take Wilder to some very dark corners.
“I ain’t got nothing to lose and I’m [going to] rain down hell on him – I’m going to f*** him up bad. You’ve seen it, I can go to hell and back. I enjoy it there as well, this time I’m going to own it," Joshua said.
“We’re big hitters, so for sure I’m going to be throwing a lot of combination punches and it’ll be interesting. I think he’ll be trying to pick punches. I’ll just be coming forward and swinging a lot of combinations, just trying to catch him and hurt him early on.”
A few weeks ago, Wilder's handlers sent Joshua an guaranteed offer of $50 million to stage the fight in the United States.
The two sides are still going back and forth on the details.
Wilder took to social media and openly baited Joshua to back up his recent words.
"You see people talk the good talk, but are not prepared to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.... to come and get it. He said he once went to hell and back and he enjoyed it. Either the devil wasn’t there or he's lying," Wilder stated.
"So, you can go to hell and back and enjoy it, but can’t come and get this money in that bag to store it."
