Two weeks after a successful defense of his WBC heavyweight championship with an 11th round TKO of Johann Duhaupas, Deontay Wilder showed no ill effects from a swollen eye suffered in the fight.
He's geared up and ready to fight again, and is planning on a January return against a to-be-determined opponent. The WBC may stick with a mandate for Wilder to fight Russian Alexander Povetkin, but Povetkin likely won't be ready for a January fight because he's got a Nov. 4 fight scheduled with Mariusz Wach.
Povetkin earned the right to face Wilder in a mandatory challenge when he beat Mike Perez in May. But Wilder's camp wants him to be the most active heavyweight champion ever. He doesn't want to wait until late in the spring to fight again.
"They can't hold me down from fighting," Wilder said at UAB's Hoops on the Haasephalt Thursday. "I'm not going to sit around. I'm the champ. When you're the champ, you decide when and where you're going to fight.
"He's got a fight in November, so he won't be ready, but I'm going to keep fighting. Hopefully he wins his next fight and we can get it on the next one. I can't wait for all of them."
Wilder won his last two fights in Birmingham and takes a 35-0 record with 34 knockouts into his next bout, which could be in New York.
"I've been wanting to break in the Barclay's Center, so we'll see what happens," Wilder said. "There's a lot of locations that's demanding me to come there. I'm looking forward to getting to the different locations and different networks, so I'm just telling people to stay tuned."
American Bryant Jennings (19-1) posted on his Instagram account that he planned to take Wilder's belt on Jan. 9, but Jennings' promoter told ESPN that fight wasn't in the cards. Jennings' only loss came to Wladimir Klitschko, who holds the other major heavyweight title belts.
"Jennings, he's a type of guy that looks for the money instead of the opportunity," Wilder said. "I've always talked about that I like guys who look for the opportunity instead of the money.
"He knows he can't beat me. My style, my skill level is way beyond him. When he fought Klitschko, he proved that he could survive. That's not what a champion is made of, not just to survive but also win. But that's one of my U.S. rivals and I would love to get one of my U.S. rivals out of the way for sure, so it could so happen to be him. There's a lot of great guys out there so we're looking to see what happens.
Jennings is ranked fifth in the WBC rankings, so he could qualify for an opponent if Wilder faces someone besides Povetkin in January. That opponent would have to be a top-15 fighter in the WBC rankings.
Article Courtesy of AL.com