The Wild Wild West

There remains a titanic presence who, for eight years, has carried the legacy of America’s iconic heavyweight history on his considerable shoulders.

Deontay Wilder watched, and waited, with great interest as the recent divisional chaos wound down and he now represents the most dangerous threat to Anthony Joshua’s long-term reign.

Lurking in the shadows as he recovered from injuries sustained in his July victory over Chris Arreola, Wilder cuts a far more erudite character than his mouthy, braggadocio fighting persona may suggest. The WBC champion has been the odd-one-out of the furore that will pit Joshua against Eric Molina and then, if all goes accordingly, Wladimir Klitschko. The one constant remains Wilder, who now finds himself as the elder statesman of the world heavyweight champions.

He has faith in his “determined” compatriot Molina to upset Joshua on Sky Sports Box Office on Saturday – “It’s not about who he is, or what his record is, it’s about what he is, and what he stands for right now” – but also recognises that he currently stands alone, staring across the Atlantic at Joshua, after leading America out of a decade of doldrums.

“With American fighters right now, they’re down,” the country’s first world heavyweight champion in eight years exclusively told Sky Sports. “In the heavyweight division the only guy is me. We’re down right now but we will get back up.

“The British scene in boxing, not just the heavyweight division, is popping. It’s your time. Everybody gets their turn and, right now, you guys are hitting home runs.”

Is IBF champion Joshua the focal point of the British royalty? “When one guy is doing good, it makes all the others want to achieve greatness,” Wilder said. “It’s contagious to do great. But once that one bad apple falls, everybody else will fall, and that’s how it is.”

American heavyweight boxing was stagnant after the era led by Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield faded, meaning a 22-year-old Wilder was plundered with more hope than expectation after a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics.

Wilder’s prize in Beijing was a false dawn – in Rio last summer, the United States didn’t even enter any boxers in the super-heavyweight, heavyweight or light-heavyweight categories for the first time in nine Olympic Games. It was an alarming reality-check for a lineage that once spawned …

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