Deontay Wilder is beginning to put a plan in place for his return to top-level heavyweight boxing.<\/p>\n
Defeats to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang left many feeling that retirement was looming for Wilder, 40, however he returned this year with a simple win over Tyrell Herndon with the promise of big fights in 2026.<\/p>\n
These plans were recently boosted when unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk revealed that Wilder is on his hit list,<\/a> and the teams have already engaged in talks to make it happen.<\/p>\n Shortly after that development, Wilder faced off publibly with British fan favourite Derek Chisora. Speaking on the incident with Cigar Talk<\/a>, he revealed that he is now targeting that fight before challenging Usyk.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s real. That could be a real fight. You know what? I was like, \u2018let him be the warm-up to the Usyk fight.\u2019 I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilder \u2014 who said that a bout with Chisora was previously 90% agreed before talks ended \u2014 spoke highly of the match-up.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you know Derek, you know he\u2019s not a pushover. You\u2019re not gonna bully him. The mentality he has, he has an alpha male mentality. And when you go up against another alpha male, it\u2019s a problem. It\u2019s like two gorillas.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he came up, he basically sized me up. He put his forehead against mine and started pushing, and I\u2019m like, \u2018hold on, bro, what you think this is?\u2019 I had to show him as well. It started getting a little bit out of control, the security [stepped in]. That\u2019s a good start for whatever may happen. I called my manager, he called his manager. They got on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n