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Deontay Wilder puts on several faces according to whom he’s speaking at the time. He slammed Anthony Joshua on British TV, calling the three-body champion a coward, but when speaking to Sky Sports, he had a different tone, saying the fight with Joshua will happen at some point.
“At some point of time, it’s going to happen, and when it happens, I’m going to reflect on all the stuff that I’ve been through. ... [I]f people want that fight, it’s going to be up to you guys to make that happen. You already know what you’ve got to do. Make it happen. The fans have got the control.”
Wilder (40-0, 39 KO) has a big fish to fry next, anyway, a December 1 fight with Tyson Fury, who still claims to be the lineal champion of the world, and with good cause. Nobody ever beat him after he beat Wladimir Klitschko, though he did sit out almost three years before returning to the ring.
As for Joshua-Wilder, I think Wilder’s right in that it’ll be fan demand that ultimately makes it happen, if it ever does. As much as boxing’s political powers try to steer the ship, when a fight is too big, it generally eventually does have to get made, even if it does happen later than we’d have liked, like a Mayweather-Pacquiao.