This past Saturday night, former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder returned to the ring at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

It was Wilder's first bout since getting stopped by Tyson Fury in their trilogy fight from last October in Las Vegas.

Before that fight took place, Wilder's manager, Shelly Finkel, was approached by promoter Eddie Hearn with respect to a potential showdown with former two-time champion Anthony Joshua.

“We said at the press conference it depends what surfaces this week. Whether it be Oleksandr Usyk, or Hearn reaching out. It’s funny with Eddie, he made all these big statements before, ‘Oh, I tried and I tried, Shelly doesn’t want to talk to me.’ I said I would talk to him, but after the fight, because that is when it makes sense, that is what the reality is. I always said, there was no reason to have spoken before the fight, but we’re always willing to talk to him," Finkel told The Sun.

Finkel is ruling out the possibility of having Wilder travel overseas for a fight with Joshua.

“I was asked if they offered the right deal, would we do the fight in the UK? Of course. Financially, it could be Saudi Arabia or another country, but it really comes down to them," Finkel said. "I believe the fight between Deontay and Joshua will do 80,000 at Wembley.

“Two or three years ago, when Joshua and us did not make the fight, he had options and he was on top of the world. Right now, he doesn’t have many options and if Fury fights Usyk, the only real big fight out there for Joshua is us. But it’s up to them. The important thing, without getting into a big dialogue with Eddie, was to wait until after the fight and then decide. If Deontay lost, there would be no fight, but now we’ll see, the fight is as enormous as ever.

"Ideally [Wilder should] come back in the spring, like March. The preference would be probably Usyk, Joshua or Ruiz. And then some scenario whoever the first fight was, then the second fight we'd do that, I wouldn't assume three fight but two."