American boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard has thrown his weight behind a much-talked about four-belt unification title fight between Nigerian-born British heavyweight, Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joashua and USA’s Deontay Wilder.
In what appears to be excited anticipation of the bout going ahead sometime next year, ‘Sugarman’ said it would be a blockbuster to watch out for, but urged Joshua to travel to America to become a global star.
WBA, IBF, IBO and WBO champion, Joshua wants to face WBC holder, Wilder at Wembley in April after their teams failed to agree on a deal for them to meet this year.
Wilder is risking his unbeaten record against Tyson Fury on December 1 in Los Angeles, but Leonard – ringside for Joshua’s win over Alexander Povetkin last month – is not thinking much of that fight.
On the other hand, Sugar Ray feels ‘AJ’ taking on Wilder would be like when he returned to the ring in 1987 to beat ferocious middleweight, Marvin Hagler.
The five-weight world champion also believes Joshua needs to make the trip across the Atlantic if he wants to be remembered as a world great.
Leonard said: “It’s a fight made in heaven. It would be up there with all the heavyweight fights in history.
“The numbers would be incredible. The reason I came back was that I wanted to fight the best in Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
“Hagler was the last one I wanted to go up against so I made sure it happened. It’s kind of a stamp of approval, people remember how you fared against the power.”
