Deontay Wilder has renewed his push for a two-fight deal with Francis Ngannou, telling the MMA star he'll head to the MMA cage after the pair box.
Interestingly, Ngannou has previously said that he would rather keep the deal to the ring without a rematch in the smart cage while it has always been the boxer pushing for the two-fight deal. And in his efforts to make the deal a reality, Wilder took an extra step last weekend by travelling to Atlanta for the first night of PFL's three-week residency at the OTE Arena.
He watched the fights from cageside and met with fans at the event headlined by Brit Brendan Loughnane. But perhaps the most interesting part of his trip was the chance he took to try on the sport's 4oz gloves, which provide less than half the padding of his usual 10oz boxing glove.
"Them gloves, man, it's terrifying to feel it," Wilder told Mirror Fighting. "Just to wrap my mind around the impact that it would cause while hitting flesh. I've done many things, amazing things just with 10oz boxing gloves where we compete so I can only imagine 4oz.
"What do heavyweights go to? It's all four? What I was wearing was it? Oh my goodness, that would be something to see, I would love to see what would happen when one of the hardest punchers in the history of boxing puts on MMA gloves and hits someone with it."
Wilder's previous offer to Ngannou for a two-fight deal, where they would first meet in the ring and then he would make the much rarer move into the cage, came before the Cameroonian had a deal to compete in MMA. Now that he has signed with PFL, the boxer believes that he could reconsider his options regarding the match-up.
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"I would love that because I haven't seen that structure in place yet at this point in time," Wilder said of the crossover move. "Many times the MMA fighter crosses over to this field of boxing, but you never see boxing crossing over. You've seen it with Ray Mercer at one point in time, James Toney, Claressa Shields has done it.
"But as far as the perspective where they come over and then you return the favour and go back over? I think that would be somewhat of an interest. It would also give us two fights, both businesses so people can see both sides and we'll see what happens. I put it out one time and he wasn't too fond of that idea. He wanted to keep it with boxing so time has passed now and there may be a different mindset now."
Watch PFL's heavyweight regular season continue from on Friday night live from Atlanta on DAZN
