Deontay Wilder has confirmed he will exercise his right to a trilogy fight with Tyson Fury.
The American was dropped twice by his rival on Saturday night and stopped in the seventh round as he was dethroned as heavyweight world champion. The loser of the fight had 30 days to activate a clause in the contract for a third fight – and Wilder will bid to win back his title.
His decision means a potential undisputed fight between Fury and Anthony Joshua will have to wait until later this year. Joshua will instead take on mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev on June 20 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Bronze Bomber plans to take a holiday to Africa and return to training at the end of March. His third fight with Fury is expected to take place at the end of July with Las Vegas again the most likely venue. Wilder will receive 40 per cent of the purse with Fury taking the lion’s share following his famous win.
And the Brit wants the trilogy clash to take place at the new Raiders stadium in Sin City. “I expect he will want a rematch and I will have that,” he said. “Great fights should have trilogies and I want it here, just across the road, at the Raiders Stadium outdoors in front of 70,000 .” Wilder, meanwhile, has blamed his 45lb costume for his defeat, claiming it weakened his legs.
He said: “He didn’t hurt me at all, but the simple fact is that my uniform was way too heavy for me. I didn’t have no legs from the beginning of the fight. In the third round, my legs were just shot all the way through. But I’m a warrior and people know that I’m a warrior. It could easily be told that I didn’t have legs or anything. A lot of people were telling me, ‘It looked like something was wrong with you.’ Something was, but when you’re in the ring, you have to bluff a lot of things.”
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