{"id":331939,"date":"2025-12-23T18:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T18:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331939\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T18:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T18:20:07","slug":"deontay-wilder-would-love-to-face-alternative-champion-as-usyk-talks-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331939\/","title":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder &#8216;would love&#8217; to face alternative champion as Usyk talks continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/deontay-wilder\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deontay Wilder<\/a> has been linked to a surprise shot at <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/oleksandr-usyk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>\u2019s unified heavyweight titles, but \u2018The Bronze Bomber\u2019 may face an alternate champion, if those plans do not come to fruition.<\/p>\n<p>Wilder has won just two of his last six professional contests, returning to winning ways with a victory over Tyrrell Herndon back in June following underwhelming displays and defeats to both <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/joseph-parker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joseph Parker<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/zhilei-zhang\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zhilei Zhang<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the 40-year-old remains one of the biggest available names for Usyk\u2019s voluntary defence of the belts and the Ukrainian has admitted that <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/oleksandr-usyk-calls-out-former-heavyweight-champion-for-next-fight-hes-first-choice\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he wishes to add the name of the former WBC world champion to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9<\/a> in order to enhance his legacy.<\/p>\n<p>Although, the Alabama-born knockout artist informed <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/l32r1fP-EtM?si=pRLiySPV9k3GInht\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boxing Social<\/a> of his interest in fighting on an IBA card and facing newly crowned WBA (Regular) champion and former sparring partner, Murat Gassiev, after witnessing the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12183\/13482729\/murat-gassiev-knocks-out-kubrat-pulev-to-claim-wba-regular-heavyweight-title-in-dubai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Russian halt Kubrat Pulev in Dubai<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI would love to fight to with the IBA. Congratulations to Gassiev, I think that would be an amazing fight.<\/p>\n<p>We used to spar together and stuff and I even enjoyed him and loved him as a cruiserweight as well. He was very fast, very strong and confident.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like Wilder, Gassiev has also been linked to a scrap with Usyk, with the WBA expected to order that fight in due course and offer the 32-year-old a shot at avenging his 2018 defeat to the reigning heavyweight ruler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder has been linked to a surprise shot at Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s unified heavyweight titles, but \u2018The Bronze&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-331939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}