DEONTAY WILDER is ready to save his dream fight with Anthony Joshua after teaming up with old foe Eddie Hearn.
The heavyweight duo finally got their blockbuster signed and sealed for March, but were knocked out when Wilder suffered defeat to Joseph Parker.
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Now the American returns on June 1st, in Saudi Arabia, against Zhilei Zhang, in the most unlikely circumstances.
He was selected as a member of Hearn’s five-fighter roster who will face Frank Warren’s picks.
Meanwhile, Joshua is set to return in September at Wembley in Saudi boxing boss Turki Alalshikh’s first move to the UK.
There is hope that it will be against Tyson Fury, but the Gypsy King must first beat Oleksandr Usyk on May 18th, already signed for a rematch.
So Wilder wouldn’t turn down the chance to finally face AJ if he got back to winning ways against Zhang, 40.
His manager, Shelly Finkel, told SunSport: “It’s speculation, but if everything goes well on June 1, as we hope and hope and this is brought to us, we will be fully open.”
Fury, 35, and Usyk, 37, face each other in the first four-belt unification of the heavyweight division next month.
And Fury distanced himself from a summer clash with Joshua, 34, to honor a potential October rematch with Usyk.
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That would leave Wilder, 38, prepared to take part in the Wembley war, but Finkel admitted the idea has not yet been discussed with Hearn.
He said: “Look, I know why this happened, but we didn’t believe Deontay would lose to Parker, so you can’t get too hasty.
“Now we have a big fight ahead of us and as long as he does what he’s supposed to do, hopefully this will be history and then we’ll move on.
“But no, there was no direct conversation.”
Joshua and Hearn endured a turbulent relationship with Wilder and Finkel for years amid repeated failed attempts to start the fight.
But this was resolved with the help of the Saudis when they at least had an agreement in place before Wilder’s shock defeat.
So perhaps that paved the way for Hearn to turn to the former WBC champion when he needed a heavyweight to face Warren.
And it could give Wilder the perfect chance to redeem himself at the scene of the crime, just seven months after his last loss.
And Finkel added: “He knows what happened, he knows why it happened. He won’t let that happen again.
“Zhang is not someone you can joke with, it is a fight that if you want to beat this guy, you have to hurt him early and stop him from being too aggressive.”
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
