TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- The heavyweight champion of the world was stepping into his bronze Rolls Royce Phantom one afternoon this August when a man walked up and asked for a picture.

What position does he play? the selfie-seeker asked a nearby photographer after Deontay Wilder drove away.

It wasn't the first time someone had mistaken Wilder, the 6-foot-7, 220-pound holder of the World Boxing Council's heavyweight championship belt, for a ballplayer. Wilder -- the first American heavyweight champ in nearly a decade -- hails from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home of the Crimson Tide. Most people don't know about his 34-0 record or his 33 knockouts. They don't know his nickname, "The Bronze Bomber," a tribute to fellow Alabaman Joe Louis. They don't know about his title, and they don't know he'll be defending it on national television on Saturday.

When they're not mistaking Wilder for one of Nick Saban's players, people sometimes mistake him for LeBron James . That started at the Olympics in 2008, when James led Team USA to a gold medal in basketball and Wilder won a bronze medal in boxing. People would be like, James! James! We love you! Wilder remembered.

Its been a long time since boxing seized Americans' attention -- in Tuscaloosa or anywhere. Just 14 percent of respondents in a recent Huffington Post/YouGov poll said they were boxing fans -- and 58 percent of those people said the sport's best days are "already behind it." Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier are dead. Muhammad Ali uses a wheelchair. George Foreman sells grills. More young people know Mike Tyson as a character from the "The Hangover" -- or as a convicted rapist -- than have seen him box.

Floyd Mayweather, the country's most famous boxer, is a misogynist and batterer .

"There are really no fighters in the pipeline," Robert Boland, a professor of sports business at New York University, told Reuters ahead of the match that was supposed to recapture the nations lasting attention: Mayweather's May fight with Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino eight-division champ. This is a time when boxing is probably at its lowest point since the beginning of the 20th century and the rise of pro fighting."

Despite Mayweather-Pacquiao's record-breaking ratings, Pacquiao looked long past his prime and the fight didnt live up to the hype . Mayweather claims his dominating victory over Andre Berto earlier this month was his last. But it's likely that American boxing hasn't seen the last of its woman-battering standardbearer: Few people believe Mayweather will quit the sport for good before breaking his current tie with Marciano , which stands at 49-0.

Wilder's fans think he's the last, best chance to save American boxing: the anti-Mayweather -- the kind of charismatic, likeable, underdog hero the sport needs. On Saturday, he will defend his title live on NBC, and become the first heavyweight to do so on primetime broadcast television since before he was born.

"I honestly feel like when Floyd retires, the boxing world will be depending and eyeing and looking at Deontay Wilder," said Damarius Cuz Hill, one of Wilder's trainers.

"I will be that guy to change this sport, especially in the heavyweight division," Wilder said. "A lot of people have lost interest. Im the right man for the job I want to make it bigger and better than it ever have been before.

But if Wilder is going to succeed, people are going to have to know who he is.