The Heavyweight Division: The Fight Over Undisputed

The Heavyweight Division: The Fight Over Undisputed

In an interview for Sky Sports, Anthony Joshua has said he would look to knockout Deontay Wilder should the two eventually and belatedly fight each other.

When asked about Wilder’s fight with Luis Ortiz, Joshua said:

“He wouldn’t be there to do that in the seventh round. I would go in to knock him out.”

Joshua’s comments are certainly interesting, maybe an admission that he would have trouble avoiding the fearsome power of Wilder through 12 rounds.

Wilder vs Joshua has always intrigued me from a tactical point of view, we all know how Wilder would fight, but Joshua, especially after his stick and move performance against Andy Ruiz Jr, is a completely different story.

Joshua has proven he can fight a disciplined tactical fight, and we know he has some serious power himself, and it will be interesting to see how he would approach a fight with Wilder.

But either way the interview has again stoked the fire for the long-anticipated fight between the two heavyweight champions.

Wilder must get through Tyson Fury in their rematch in February, which is by means certain he will. As for Joshua, he has mandatory challengers already waiting for him in Kubrat Pulev and Oleksandr Usyk, so a fight between Joshua and Wilder or indeed Fury is highly unlikely to happen in 2020.

For a long time I’ve wanted all the world heavyweight titles to be undisputed, a fully unified champion. But equally I want to see the big fights, and undisputed will certainly delay if not forever deny us the type of fight that will live long in the memory.

I would quite happily have splintered titles if we got to see Joshua against the winner of Wilder vs Fury 2. A more than worthwhile sacrifice for me, that particular fight has an extremely limited window of opportunity, the longer they wait, the greater the risk of it never happening, undisputed could come later the fight might not.

Each governing body will have their own mandatory challenger at various stages of the calendar year, titles being vacated is therefore almost inevitable, unless common sense is for once applied.

2019 told us the heavyweight division is never straightforward, 2020 is unlikely to be any different. I wrote an article early last year about the heavyweight dance of avoidance, and a once promising heavyweight division was slipping into a period of frustration and fan apathy.

The division has since exploded into life once again, we must not let it drift into a deep coma of indifference.