Former world heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder believes Anthony Joshua looks "broken" going into his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk tomorrow night.
The ex-WBC champion reigned for half a decade with the other heavyweight belt, during which time Tyson Fury picked up the unified WBO, WBA and WBC belts from Wladimir Klitschko. But when he was forced out of the sport for three years, the belts were spread out again, and it was up to Joshua to unify them again with wins over the likes of Charles Martin, Joseph Parker and Klitschko.
And despite fans clamouring to see an undisputed fight between the two heavyweights, Wilder ultimately opted for a trilogy against the returning Fury, who relieved him of the belt in 2020. Having felt the sting of losing his title despite holding the favourite tag and entering a rematch as an underdog challenger, Wilder is in a unique position to understand Joshua's situation.
He feels the Brit will not be able to reclaim the belts from Usyk, and is picking the Ukrainian to stay champion. "I'm going with Usyk in this fight," Wilder told FightHype when asked for his prediction. "I've said that after that fight and I'm sticking with my word on this one. Usyk just looks more confident than ever now and when you look at Joshua he just looks like a different man.
"He looks more broken or something, maybe it's him getting used to not having the titles and now the tables have turned. Because sometimes you have something for so long and the tables turn you've got a chance to get used to that when you were used to something else."
However, Wilder is keen not to send any fans to the bookies based on his recommendation. He understands that Joshua could be struggling with other issues outside of the ring, including an incident earlier this year where he went to a student accommodation after being insulted from a distance.
"Who knows, though?" He continued. "It's just my opinion about things. Maybe it could be the pressure of how to be the champion and he's just being himself. I've seen a lot of people talking about certain things he's been doing outside of the ring, running in people's homes and s*** like that.
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"It's crazy like every time somebody do something, a fighter or whatever, you hear about it. Somebody calls you, it's like a big family. At the end of the day if you don't know this person or that person, somebody knows somebody and it's always entertaining but who knows? We're going to see Saturday.
"I'm going with Usyk like I picked before and I'm sticking with that. Once that happens, I think there's a lot of things in the future like a unification bout."
Wilder is currently in Las Vegas preparing for his own ring return, where he will face Robert Helenius on October 15. Helenius is a similarly big heavyweight to his old rival Fury, and will prove a solid test for where Wilder stands as a top heavyweight at this stage in his career.
