By Scott Gilfoid: Showtime executive vice president of sports Stephen Espinoza believes they’ll be putting on a fight between WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) and IBF champion Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) by next year in 2017. Espinoza thinks the Wilder vs. Joshua fight can take place in the United States in New York or Las Vegas.
Even if one of the two are beaten, Espinoza still thinks the fight is possible. Showtime signed the 26-year-old Joshua to a multi-fight agreement recently to have his fights piped in from England to the United States.
It’s unclear if all of Joshua’s fights will wind up being televised in the afternoon when fewer boxing fans would normally watch that channel. If the idea is to have Joshua’s fights always televised during the day, then the ratings will probably consistently be low on Saturday’s because there are too many other sports to watch than boxing during the daytime during the weekends.
Next year might be way too premature to have Wilder fighting Joshua. How can you make that fight when no one in the U.S knows who Joshua is? That’s crazy. Joshua will have a small handful of fights that have been shown in the U.S by 2017, and likely many of them will be against fringe level guys like Dominic Breazeale and other similar fighters.
To build up a fight between Joshua and Wilder properly, Joshua needs to at least have his fights televised in the U.S for a good five to seven years. I mean, look at Gennady Golovkin. He’s had his fights televised continuously in the U.S for the past four years since 2012, and he’s still not a PPV star. Golovkin probably needs another two more years to become a PPV star, and he’ll need help by fighting the bigger names like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and such.
If Espinoza pushes for a fight between Joshua and Wilder by 2017, he’ll really undercutting the pay-per-view potential of the fight. They need to let that fight marinate for a good five to seven years in my view before springing it on the American public and asking them to open their wallets to pay to see it. If Showtime televises Joshua vs. Wilder in 2017 or even 2018, the fight won’t be PPV worthy. The boxing public will say, ‘who the heck is Joshua? Is he the guy that won the controversial medal in the London Olympics in 2012?’ It won’t work to have those guys fight until the two of them have had a lot of time to build the fight up more.
“I’m hoping, I’m very optimistic we can get that fight done within the next 12-18 months,” said Espinoza to skysports.com. “I would love to see that within the next year and I think it’s realistic to say that, if both continue winning. Even if not, I think it’s a very attractive fight regardless. I know that in the near future names like David Haye and Tyson Fury and Klitschko, Wilder and Parker are definitely on the agenda.”
I don’t know about Joshua, but Wilder isn’t going anywhere. He’s going to be a world champion for a long, long time. There’s no reason to rush a fight against Joshua on his end. Maybe on Joshua’s there’s pressure to make the Deontay fight happen soon because he might have a chin and stamina problem. Dilliam Whyte had Joshua staggering in their fight in 2015, and he did it in fighting with just one good arm.
If Whyte was able to put Joshua in bad shape, then that means other heavyweights will do the same thing once they get a chance at him. Heck, even Breazeale might do the job. Joshua likes to stand and flurry with his opponents, and that makes him so, so hittable.
When you fight in the reckless manner that Joshua fights in, it’s only a matter of time before you get sparked out. Yeah, Joshua will win a lot of his fights against the type of opposition he’s facing with his brawling fighting style, but sooner or later one of the guys he’s fighting will nail him with a big shot while he’s throwing his arm punch flurries. Once that happens, Joshua will get buried with a blizzard of punches and will no longer be the IBF belt holder.