Deontay Wilder Hopes Andy Ruiz Jr ‘Wants’ To Fight Him
The WBC ordered the bout as a heavyweight title eliminator.
Former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) hopes that everything is in place for a historic eliminator against former unified champion Andy Ruiz.
Until now, there has been no confirmation about the Wilder-Ruiz matchup.
“The biggest thing for me and Andy, it’s just location, I got a lot of meetings with a lot of different people,” Wilder said to ES News. “It’s coming, I want to fight Andy, I hope he wants to fight me.”
If there is one boxer Wilder doesn’t expect to face, it is Anthony Joshua. The Britisher lost consecutive fights against Oleksandr Usyk and is returning on April 1 against Jermaine Franklin.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has held talks with Wilder’s co-manager, Shelly Finkel. However, nothing is official yet.
Regardless of the circumstances, Wilder is confident that he will win again. The American returned to the winner’s circle after crushing former sparring partner Robert Helenius in one round.
“Joshua doesn’t want to fight me; it’s plain and clear. I don’t know why people keep asking about that,” Wilder said in an interview with Elie Seckbach of ESNews.
“Everybody should’ve known when the $50 million was offered, and he didn’t take it. Even moving forward, Joshua doesn’t want to fight. They should have known then there was something fishy about it.”