Oleksandr Usyk wasn’t ringside Saturday night at Barclays Center to watch Deontay Wilder knock out Robert Helenius in the first round.
The unbeaten Ukrainian indicated last month that he would attend the Wilder-Helenius card in Brooklyn because he wanted to fight the former WBC heavyweight champion next. After delivering another spectacular knockout, Wilder thinks Usyk will reconsider his position on fighting him, too.
Wilder will press Usyk and his team to keep his word, but that’s about all the 36-year-old knockout artist can do as the search begins for his next opponent.
“I think it’s gonna be very difficult,” Wilder said during his post-fight press conference early Sunday morning. “I’ll be very surprised if he stick to his word. You know, I’m a man of my word. I abide by principles, morals and goals. They say that if you don’t believe in something, you’ll fall for anything. And I believe in something. You know, and the last champion that came to a fight that said he would give me a fight, he went the other way after a devastating knockout.
“You know what I’m saying? We talkin’ about Joseph Parker. You know, so we’ll see what happens. And I’m gonna keep Usyk to his word. You know, we’ll be calling his team, you know, and whoever his handler is, and we’re gonna see what’s up. And if he a man of his word, what a hell of a fight it would be.”
It would make better business sense for Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) to face a less dangerous opponent than Wilder next or to simply await the outcome of the Tyson Fury-Dereck Chisora fight December 3 at a venue to be announced before the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO champion schedules his next move.
Facing Fury, assuming the heavily favored WBC champion conquers Chisora for the third time, would afford Usyk the opportunity to become boxing’s first fully unified heavyweight champion of the four-belt era. The former undisputed cruiserweight champion could make a lot of money to fight Wilder as well, but he mentioned a fight with Wilder when it appeared possible that Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs) could square off against Anthony Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) on December 3 in what would’ve been the biggest fight in British boxing history.
The 35-year-old Usyk has unanimously out-pointed Joshua in back-to-back 12-round bouts – most recently August 20 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – but there would’ve been much more money to be made in a Fury-Joshua fight than a Fury-Usyk showdown.
Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs), who will turn 37 on Saturday, fought for the first time against Helenius since Fury violently knocked him out in the 11th round of their third title fight last October 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Tuscaloosa, Alabama native nailed Finland’s Helenius (31-4, 20 KOs) with a right hand that left his 38-year-old opponent flat on his back and unable to continue with just three seconds remaining in the first round.
By Keith Idec