Bring on Wilder Now Joshua wants £100m mega fight with American

Points win over Parker shows up limitations Briton dismisses rival’s ‘I want a body’ threat

The greatest challenge on Anthony Joshua’s radar after defeating Joseph Parker and claiming the third of four major heavyweight title belts is to secure Deontay Wilder’s signature for a £100million megafight.

Such a showdown, if the match can be made, would create the first undisputed world heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis 15 years ago.

Behind the smokescreens, on the strength of Joshua’s performance against the game Samoan, neither Wilder, the brash American who is undefeated in 40 fights, with 39 knockouts, nor even the returning Tyson Fury, will be quaking in their boots.

Trainer Rob Mccracken may have given Joshua a “nine out of 10” rating for Saturday night’s cultured – yet ordinary – points victory over Parker, but it is a very large 10 per cent margin which remains. Yes, Joshua has 21 victories, with 20 knockouts. But there are still weaknesses, limitations. Conversely, when it comes to the biggest gates, the richest fights, Joshua remains “The Big Show”.

We can expect claim and counter-claim over the coming weeks as the vying teams for Joshua and Wilder exchange emails and barbs across the Atlantic.

The first tasteless ones came from Wilder – who missed, or chose to miss, the biggest PR opportunity of his career by reneging on his deal with Sky Sports to commentate ringside in Cardiff – with the Alabaman claiming in a radio interview that he “wanted a body” on his record at some point, and mocked Joshua’s tattoo of Africa as a fake symbol, because he “is British, not African”.

Joshua dismissed as distasteful Wilder’s boast that his wild powerpunching may one day kill an opponent in the ring. “I dread the day it happens because sometimes what you say comes to reality,” responded the 28-year-old Briton.

“I just hope it doesn’t happen to someone because it’s not good for the sport. Once a life’s gone, you can’t get it back. Watch, though, after we do fight, he will shake my hand, so I don’t take the personal stuff to heart.”

On Wilder’s decision to stay away from Cardiff, Joshua commented: “I’m not disappointed he didn’t come because this wasn’t about Wilder. It was about Parker and me. Does he need me more than I need him? Yes.

“Without being big-headed, that’s 100 per cent. He needs British Going the distance: Anthony Joshua on the attack against Joseph Parker in their Cardiff world title showdown boxing. He’s bigger here than he is in the States because of us.”

Joshua is correct in that. While the Londoner’s last three title fights have drawn 90,000 and 80,000 twice in stadiums, each one generating upwards of £25 million, Wilder sells out 9,000 seats in Brooklyn, New York. Joshua is a sports star, Wilder still relatively unknown outside boxing.

Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, said of Wilder: “He’s desperate. You don’t say something like, ‘I want to put somebody in a body bag’ unless you’re purely desperate. He has completely lost his head. He’s prepared to do or say anything to make the fight, other than actually make the fight.”

And so it will be now until the fight is announced. If it is to go ahead. Hearn, who disclosed that he intends to table face-to-face meetings with Wilder’s advisers, Al Haymon and Shelly Finkel, let loose on Wilder’s team after the Joshuaparker fight: “It’s so painful because they are jokers. They have not even approached us. No one has ever approached us for this fight.”

The reality is that his closest advisers may steer Joshua away from Wilder until next year, two more fights away, in spite of the stated intention to target this summer.

“It all depends,” said Hearn. “I will present the deal to Anthony but it has to be the right deal. It’s not just a case of, ‘Anthony, take the fight’. It’s got to be right for everybody, and everybody is involved in that process.”

Joshua, meanwhile, soaks up the criticism and acclaim with the same sponge, admitting that he remains “a work in progress”.

“No, it doesn’t annoy me at all, because I am a work in progress. I do like to be known as a big puncher but I like to be known as someone who can box and control opponents as well.” Joshua did succeed in that against Parker.

The unfortunate thing, however, is that he is learning on the job, and the likes of Wilder, a very dangerous, fast foe, lie in waiting.

“If you look through my record from my 21 fights, there hasn’t been an issue with fighting anyone,” stressed Joshua. “There is no fear. There should be no hold-up, and that fight should be sooner rather than later.”

For the next few weeks, the promoters, not the fighters, will be going into the trenches.