Even as Deontay Wilder is defending his WBC heavyweight title against Tyson Fury in December and has a potential mandatory challenger in Dominic Breazeale, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman still wants to see his heavyweight champion face off against Anthony Joshua.
Sulaiman spoke to Sky Sports and reiterated his desires to see the WBC champion face off against Joshua, the current WBA "super," WBO and IBF champion. In fact, Sulaiman stated that he would allow the winner of Wilder vs. Fury to immediately challenge Joshua to a fight that would unify all four major alphabet belts and crown the next undisputed heavyweight champion.
"Absolutely, that's a fight the world wants to see," Sulaiman said. "That's a fight the WBC has just ruled to support. During our convention, a ruling of the mandatory status included the provision of trying to make the winner of Fury-Wilder against Joshua."
Joshua and Wilder were close to fighting each other, even initially agreeing to a fight for later this year. But the fight fell through, and so, Joshua would book his next two fights to take place at Wembley Stadium. The first one, which took place on September 22, saw Joshua knock out Alexander Povetkin to retain his unified titles. The second will take place in April 2019 against an opponent to be determined at a much later date, but the hope around the boxing community is that the second Wembley Stadium fight would be against Wilder.
As for Wilder, he’ll be facing off against Fury on a Showtime pay-per-view main event on December 1 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
