{"id":319694,"date":"2025-12-02T03:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319694\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T03:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:21:11","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-champion-wants-deontay-wilder-as-his-next-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319694\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk: Champion wants Deontay Wilder as his next opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unified heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk has named Deontay Wilder as the “first option” for his next fight.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian stopped Londoner Daniel Dubois<\/a> at Wembley Stadium in July to become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

Usyk, 38, then vacated his WBO belt, with Britain’s Fabio Wardley upgraded<\/a> from ‘interim’ to full champion.<\/p>\n

“I continue fighting next year. I want to fight Deontay Wilder. I think it’s interesting,” he told Boxing King Media.<\/p>\n

Wilder, a former WBC world champion and once the division’s most feared puncher, has struggled since his trilogy with Tyson Fury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The American’s stock plummeted after back-to-back stoppage defeats by Joseph Parker in 2023 and Zhilei Zhang in 2024.<\/p>\n

After more than a year out, Wilder, 40, returned in June with a low-key seventh-round stoppage of little-known Tyrrell Anthony Herndon.<\/p>\n

Despite that decline, Usyk still views ‘The Bronze Bomber’ as a marquee name.<\/p>\n

“He is a world champion guy. A very famous and strong guy,” Usyk said.<\/p>\n

“One of the great heavyweights of the last 10 years. I spoke with my team and said he is the first option.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unified heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk has named Deontay Wilder as the “first option” for his next fight.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-319694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}