Eddie Hearn: ‘Deontay Wilder has lost the plot at the moment’

Deontay Wilder

THE world wants to see Anthony Joshua versus Deontay Wilder for all the major heavyweight titles. But in the meantime promoter Eddie Hearn is keen to get one of his other heavyweights in the ring with the WBC heavyweight titlist.

โ€œ[Wilder] has lost the plot at the moment. He doesnโ€™t know what heโ€™s doing. Heโ€™s got a team of people around him that canโ€™t pay him any money. Weโ€™re offering him a load of money and he thinks Iโ€™m an arsehole so he doesnโ€™t really want to deal with me. But when he realises Iโ€™m paying him three or four times more than everybody else,โ€ Hearn said. โ€œBut now I can put it on a plate, youโ€™ve got Dillian Whyte, youโ€™ve got Dereck Chisora, he might look at โ€˜Del Boyโ€™ and go, โ€˜Iโ€™ll have Del Boy.โ€™ Imagine Wilder against Chisora at the O2.โ€

โ€œOr Brooklyn. If I get the visa,โ€ Chisora quipped.

Chisora, after an extraordinary victory over Carlos Takam, is well placed for a major heavyweight fight. โ€œHe didnโ€™t just win. He won in an epic fight. I think he has so many options now and itโ€™s remarkable at this stage of his career,โ€ Hearn said. โ€œTakamโ€™s a very good fighter, f****** tough. He would have walked through 90 percent of the top 15 in the world [on Saturday]. He was motivated he had a 10 week training camp. He knew that if he could beat Chisora he could talk about other big fights.โ€

โ€œIโ€™m not going to lie to you, I tried to take the centre of the ring [against Takam],โ€ Chisora noted. โ€œIf I start moving my feet and get caught with anything clean, itโ€™ll just drop me. So let me go on the ropes. So I used the ropes. Every time he opened up, I donโ€™t want to trade with him, Iโ€™m going to catch 95 percent of his punches and Iโ€™ll just land clean shots basically. And thatโ€™s what I did. I was landing more to the body. I hit him a couple of times to the head. He didnโ€™t budge. I was like, Jesus Christ, this is a long night.โ€

He absorbed a hellacious volume of punches but uncorked a tremendous knockout finish in the eighth round. โ€œIt was more emotional. Before I went through a lot when I was preparing for this fight,โ€ Chisora said. โ€œIt was very emotional because I was reading everything and people were just writing me off. But the man upstairs, he didnโ€™t write me off. He told me believe in yourself and all will happen.โ€

Chisora credits turning his life around with leading him to this victory. โ€œIโ€™m Born Again. I spend my whole time going to church and stuff like that. Iโ€™ve changed completely, done a 360 degree turn on my life. Things I used to do before I donโ€™t do any more. I donโ€™t drink anymore, I stopped drinking. I stopped doing so many things. When you find God things change in your life, so that was it basically,โ€ Chisora said.

The win over Takam will be crucial for the next step in his career. โ€œI see big fights for Del now in London. The Dillian Whyte fight [in 2016] was a very close fight with Del. I know everyoneโ€™s got their views, it could have gone either way. That fight could have turned everything if heโ€™d won but this was a much bigger win I feel than what that fight would have been at the time,โ€ promoter Eddie Hearn said. โ€œIf Wilder said Iโ€™ll fight Chisora but only in Brooklyn, I donโ€™t think youโ€™d have to ask Del many times. Weโ€™d put it on DAZN, weโ€™d put it on Sky Sports Box Office, the money would be there for everybody.โ€

deontay wilder

โ€œThatโ€™s if I get a visa,โ€ Chisora added cheerfully.

A further complication though would be that Tyson Fury, by his own account, is in advanced talks for fighting Wilder himself. Read on HERE.

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