Deontay Wilder Accepts Anthony Joshua’s Challenge, Willing To Travel To United Kingdom For A Fight

After Anthony Joshua unified the WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles, he issued a challenge to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder to go to the United Kingdom and unify all four major world titles.

Wilder was supposed to have a media conference call on April 3 in which Fightful would be participating but postponed the conference call hours before it was set to happen. Instead, the WBC champion released a statement, which can be seen in the tweet below, indicating that he would be willing to travel to the United Kingdom and engage in one of the biggest heavyweight title fights in recent boxing history. Wilder said there is nothing from his side preventing this fight to happen.

“I accept that challenge and I am ready to come to the UK for my next fight. There is nothing on Team Wilder’s side to prevent me from fighting you next,” Wilder said in his statement.

Joshua defeated Joseph Parker in Cardiff, Wales on March 31 to unify the three titles while Wilder last retained his WBC title on March 3 against Luis Ortiz.

Wilder had been trying to get a fight with Joshua for the past several months, going as far as to say Joshua is afraid of him and that Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, has been talking too much about the potential fight and not putting an effort to make the fight happen.

If the fight were to take place, the vacant Ring Magazine heavyweight title would also be on the line, meaning the winner of Joshua vs. Wilder would be the first heavyweight boxer in history to hold the WBA, WBO, WBC, IBF and Ring Magazine titles at the same time.