Deontay Wilder Biding Time on the Long-Anticipated Road to Wladimir Klitschko

Deontay Wilder gets to cross a pair of items off his bucket list Saturday night.

The most hyped American heavyweight since the generation that produced Riddick Bowe defends his WBC Heavyweight Championship in a homecoming fight at the Bartow Arena on the campus of the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Fan reaction to this fight has been generally negative, but much of it misses the point.

Wilder's foe, Eric Molina, a virtually no-hope opponent, is there as fodder for the champion to produce a sensational home performance that generates demand for bigger fights down the road.

Molina was selected mainly because he’s not going to do much to upset an applecart containing hugely marketable and lucrative fights later in the year—that’s certainly true—but let’s not pretend Wilder's team passed up dozens of more worthy challengers for the chance.

And let’s not act like Molina is anything more than a way station on the road toward potential transcending glory as not just a heavyweight champion but possibly the heavyweight champion.

Wilder has his eyes set on the division’s biggest fish, a shark that has dominated heavyweight boxing for nearly 10 years and through 18 consecutive title defenses: Wladimir Klitschko.

“Of course, that’s something I think about [fighting Klitschko], but at this moment in time, I’m not focused on him,” Wilder said on a media conference call.

“He will get his turn as well too, and last time I checked, I have the most prestigious, most well-known, most precious, beautiful belt in all of boxing, something that’s been around for a very long time, and that’s the WBC crown, it’s something that everybody wants.”

Let’s leave aside dubious claims about individual belts and their values—it’s true Klitschko has long coveted the WBC strap, but he’s the real champ until toppled or retired—and focus on the larger issue.

Klitschko vs. Wilder would be the biggest heavyweight fight to come along since Lennox Lewis trounced the shell of Mike Tyson in 2002.

Heavyweight boxing has been a virtual dead zone ever since, with the towering Wlad, and for a time his brother Vitali, establishing dominion over a relatively weak crop of big men while rarely allowing the titles to leave Germany.

No one has even challenged Klitschko during his reign.

But his latest contest, a workmanlike decision over American Bryant Jennings at Madison Square Garden in New York, raised a few questions about the champ’s long-term viability.

“We all seen loose holes,” Wilder said, assessing Klitschko’s performance against Jennings. “We all seen something that was there. If anybody says they didn’t, then they’re a liar. We all seen that, but when that time comes, I’m going to execute those things that I saw.

“Once I get finished with Molina, then we can come back and talk about Klitschko.”

Oh, we will.

We’ll talk plenty about that fight.

Steve Marcus/Getty Images

Nothing even comes close in terms of marketability and anticipation.

Tyson Fury is within the orbit, but heavyweight boxing always seems to be a bigger draw with a top-flight American fighter at or near the top.

That’s likely to rub many of our friends across the pond the wrong way.

No disrespect is intended, but the mainstream boxing fan would be more captivated by the once—and possibly future?—chinny Klitschko against the power-punching Tuscaloosa, Alabama, native who started his career with 32 devastating knockouts in a row.

A win over Molina doesn’t move the needle so much as a tick, especially since it seems a letdown after Wilder produced an impressive beatdown of the rugged Bermane Stiverne to win the title in January.

A win over Klitschko to become the first American undisputed heavyweight champion in better than a decade?

Now that would be priceless, and it would catapult Wilder to the stratosphere of the sport.

It would send him into some hallowed company.

Wilder remains intensely confident in his ability to not only establish himself as the best heavyweight on the planet but to use that traction to become bigger for boxing than even Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“Most definitely [on whether he could be bigger for boxing than Mayweather], and I say that with high confidence because the heavyweight division is the cream of the crop in the first place, and the things that I bring, the excitement, the personality that I have, everything about me is all me, is totally me,” Wilder said.

“Some people, some guys when they have cameras in their face, they pursue to be a certain type of person. Their persona about them changes or whatever, and then when the camera is off, they’re a whole totally different person. I don’t have flip personalities. I’m not a fake person.”

That’s for sure.

Wilder is a big personality.

He’s flashy without being brash and confident without being cocky. Perhaps most importantly, his hard work has allowed the stars to align perfectly and give him a fight in the comforts of his home.

“I am very honored to be able to fight in my state because a lot of fighters can’t fight in their state. A lot of fighters don’t have a home to come to, they have to fight elsewhere, but I have the honor and the privilege to have a state that’s behind me and has loved me,” Wilder said.

“And like I said, me and Molina are going to make history that night. Win, lose, or draw, we’re going to make history that night in the state of Alabama.”

History.

A loss or draw in Sweet Home Alabama would make Wilder history, for sure, and it would set the American heavyweight scene back once again after finally emerging from years in the wilderness.

But that shouldn’t happen.

What should happen is a feel-good win that puts us on the road to a heavyweight unification fight that could finally cast some light on a long-forgotten division.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeBoxing. 

All quotes were obtained firsthand.