WBC Heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder makes a bold claim about his UK rival ahead of a possible unification.

Discussions are underway to stage the US vs UK heavyweight title clash at some point in 2018 and already, the early mind games are starting from Wilder.

The WBC heavyweight champion believes Joshua could actually be fearful of him, genuinely scared.

From experience of talking to boxers over the years, very, very few of them have fear for other men in my experience, so this is a bit of a bold claim from Wilder.

Speaking to TMZ, he said:

“Listen mate (English accent), lets get this fight on man. We can have the biggest fight in boxing history. I don’t need you, you don’t need me but at the end of the day, to make this fight an extravagant fight in world history – we need each other on this.”

He added:

“You may be fearful of me. It’s okay. At the end of the day we are all going to come out of this as heroes.”

Both fighters are undefeated heavyweights with massive knockout power on their records and in the grand scheme of things, are still relatively young in the heavyweight division’s terms.

Who’s to say they can’t have a trilogy of bouts over the coming years?

For the full clip on TMZ YouTube check it out here: