Junior dos Santos planning to challenge boxing champ Deontay Wilder

Conor McGregor certainly opened the door for MMA-boxing promotion. McGregor’s 2017 boxing bout with Floyd Meayweather has led to UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov challenging the previously named boxer, and two-weight UFC champion Henry Cejudo taking aim at famed boxer Vasyl Lomachenko.  With all the financial success that McGregor-Mayweather had, it’s easy to understand why.

Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos has quite the task ahead of him. Tomorrow night he takes on Cameroonian knockout artist Francis Ngannou, who took the division by storm with an impressive six fight win streak before failing to win the title in 2018.

Dos Santos surely isn’t looking past Ngannou, but he certainly has his sights set on a UFC title shot and subsequent boxing match against world champion Deontay Wilder.

“Now my biggest goal is to go back, fight for the title in the UFC. Take the belt back and then start promoting a fight against one of the boxing champions,” dos Santos told MMA Fighting.

“I think and I already have this idea in my mind who it could be. It could be Deontay Wilder because everything I see about Deontay, he’s a great champion. He knocks everybody out and he doesn’t run away from a good match,” sade dos Santos. “He accepts all the matches. Some of the guys pick fights but this guy is not picking fights. He’s fighting everybody. So I think if we have a good match and we are able to make people want to see that fight and there’s a chance it could happen.

“I’ve been watching him for a long time. I actually admire him. His boxing skills are different but I think that’s the perfect match for me. I can see many, many holes in his game. Can you imagine I’m not worrying about no takedowns, no kicks, no jiu-jitsu, only boxing. That would be paradise for me.”

After a one year hiatus, following issues with a tainted supplement, dos Santos returned to the UFC with a decision win over Blagoy Ivanov. Thereafter he handed Australian standout Tai Tuivasa his first loss, after finishing the prospect via TKO. In his last outing he knocked out Derrick Lewis in the second round.