{"id":404902,"date":"2026-02-03T02:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/404902\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T02:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T02:46:11","slug":"deontay-wilder-reveals-why-he-chose-chisora-over-title-fight-with-usyk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/404902\/","title":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder reveals why he chose Chisora over title fight with Usyk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deontay Wilder<\/a> has revealed why his mooted matchup with Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, for the unified world heavyweight crown, has been replaced by a non-title fight against Derek Chisora<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former WBC champion was called out by Usyk towards the end of last year<\/a>, with both parties entering negotiations for their showdown to take place in America.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, though, heavyweight veteran Chisora emerged as a rumoured opponent for \u2018The Bronze Bomber\u2019, who also happens to be gearing up for his 50th professional outing.<\/p>\n

With 100 fights between them, it has now been confirmed that the pair will collide on April 4<\/a>, headlining a Misfits Pro card in London.<\/p>\n

Chisora comes off a string of points victories over Gerald Washington, Joe Joyce and Otto Wallin, which followed his punishing stoppage defeat to Tyson Fury<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

At the age of 42, it is certainly fair to say that the Londoner has seen better days; but so too has Wilder, whose last contest saw him labour to a seventh-round finish over Tyrrell Herndon in June.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, the 40-year-old had suffered back-to-back defeats to Joseph Parker<\/a> and Zhilei Zhang<\/a>, with the two fights ending via a wide unanimous decision and fifth-round stoppage, respectively.<\/p>\n

But now, Wilder has secured himself a more winnable fight than his scuppered assignment against Usyk, which, speaking with Daily Mail Boxing<\/a>, he claims talks with the Ukrainian were simpy dragging on too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in negotiations, sometimes things just take longer than [you expect].<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot going on \u2013 I don\u2019t want to put words in nobody\u2019s mouth, but the process was taking too long. We needed to get out and get a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to call it a warm-up fight \u2013 Derek\u2019s no pushover, he\u2019s coming to fight. I\u2019m mentally, physically and emotionally prepared for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Usyk coming off a fifth-round stoppage victory over Daniel Dubois<\/a>, and having expressed his desire to enter at least two more fights, it remains to be seen who he will now defend his WBC, IBF and WBA titles against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder has revealed why his mooted matchup with Oleksandr Usyk, for the unified world heavyweight crown, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-404902","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\/404902","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=404902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}