Former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder 43-2-1 (42) says his concussive power should be enough to see him land the vaunted main event slot on the mega-card at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 23.
The 38-year-old from Tuscaloosa, Alabama – who holds an astonishing knockout ratio of almost 98% – will take on 31-year-old former WBO champion Joseph Parker 33-3 (23) of New Zealand on a card that will also feature five other heavyweight bouts and two world championship fights at light heavyweight and cruiserweight.
The other big heavyweight fight on the card features 34-year-old two-time WBA, WBO and IBF champion Anthony Joshua 26-3 (23) of England up against 32-year-old Swedish southpaw Otto Wallin 26-1 (14).
Who ultimately ends up headlining the show will be up to the Saudi promoters, but Wilder has a simple solution to resolve the impasse.
“They [the Saudis] came up with it, they came up with the order and they’re going along with it,” Wilder told 78SPORTSTV.
“The only thing I’m not certain of is whether I’mma be the main event or Joshua’s gonna be the main event, we don’t know yet.
“I’ve requested them to do a flip of a coin. So we’ll see what happens.
“I feel I should be main event, I think I should be main event because of what I carry.
“People wanna see knockouts, and we know for sure, if you wanna see that, who’s the man to do it?
“Women lie, men lie, but numbers do not lie.
“With all that being said, they’ve been wanting a knockout king, they want to give their people that.
“They want a body on that canvas shaking and doing all kinds of freaky shit, so what other man to do it?
“They’ve had Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk there and they’ve done their best, but now it’s my turn.”
In a separate interview Wilder doubled down on his longtime desire to compete in mixed martial arts.
“My thing is I’m trying to come into the UFC family,” Wilder told ESNews. “I’m looking to cross over and do both boxing and going to the UFC as well. I’m serious about that. I’ve been getting a lot of calls.”
He added: “I can see myself doing both. Being since boxing is not going as fast as it should be or fighters fearing for themselves not to fight.”
Widler has boxed just once since his 11th round knockout loss to Tyson Fury in their trilogy fight two years ago, a first round blowout of Robert Helenius.
He sees mixed martial arts as a way to fill the void in his boxing calendar as he closes in on the final chapter of his career.
“You have a UFC fight where I know you ain’t got to worry about records, you ain’t gotta worry about managers or promotions or whatever,” Wilder said. “The best is going to fight the best, because [UFC boss] Dana [White] gonna make sure they get what they want. Like he said, it ain’t all about record. It’s about the best fighting the best. That’s where I want to be at.
“I got several years left in me to be able to do this. I just wanna run it all out. I want to squeeze it all out until my time is up. I got a lot to deal right now. I just want to benefit both worlds. Being champion in both of them, heavyweight champion in both of them, UFC and boxing.”
