Hearn wants Joshua to face Parker or Klitschko in November

By Boxing News - 06/26/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Well, I knew it was too good to be true. After WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) stepped up to the plate to volunteer to fight IBF heavyweight belt holder Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) for his next fight, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he would like to match him against his mandatory challenger #1 IBF Joseph Parker (19-0, 16 KOs) or 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) next in November.

It’s unclear why Hearn doesn’t want to pull the trigger on the Joshua vs. Wilder fight, but you have to guess that he might have reservations about wanting to throw his golden goose into the deep end of the pool in the shark infested waters where he could wind up getting ripped apart.

Joshua beat the easy to hit fringe contender Dominic Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs) by a 7th round knockout last Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England. Breazeale was just hanging around taking punishment for seven rounds without even trying to throw right hands. It was pretty sad to watch.

Previous to last night’s contest, Breazeale had been on the case of former IBF belt holder Charles Martin for him not throwing punches against Joshua. Well, we saw the same thing with Breazeale last night as well with him doing zero for seven rounds other than jabbing and getting hit 24/7.

“We like the Joseph Parker fight, that’s the mandatory, and we’ll have to deal with that at some point; whether that’s November, December or whether that’s March, April that’s a good fight,” said Hearn via skysports.com. “Our conversations with Peter Fury (his trainer and uncle) were to look at the Fury fight for November, December, or spring, summer next year. But you never know with Tyson Fury how long someone’s going to be in the game, because he’s a little bit out there. The ankle injury has kind of made the decision for us.”

It’s interesting that Hearn doesn’t mention Deontay Wilder’s name as a potential option for Joshua’s next fight. You can interpret that as you wish, but I see it as a case of them not wanting to take on a dangerous puncher like Deontay right now. They were beaming with confidence before the Breazeale fight when Deontay wasn’t saying anything. But now that the fight is over with and Deontay is calling them out, we’re hearing crickets chirping from Hearn and Joshua about taking the fight with the talented 6’7” knockout artist.

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As for Joseph Parker, he has a fight next month against #11 WBA Solomon Haumono (24-2-2, 21 KOs) on July 21 at the Horncastle Arena in Christchurch, New Zealand. This is obviously little more than a tune-up fight for the 24-year-old Parker, as Haumono isn’t in his class and will be lucky if he can make it out of the 1st round. Haumono was stopped by journeyman Kevin Johnson in the 10th round in 2013. Since then, Haumono has been fighting 2nd and 3rd tier opposition. I’m not sure why the World Boxing Association has Haumono ranked in their top 15, because it seems to me that if they have him ranked in the top 15, then they should have journeyman Kevin Johnson ranked there too. I’m just saying. The WBA’s ranking makes no sense to me whatsoever.

“The Parker fight’s going to happen in either November, December, or March, April. Wladimir Klitschko is a fight we’d love as well, but I’m always reluctant to make a fight of that magnitude in November,” said Hearn.

Who is Hearn kidding? How is he going to make a fight against Wladimir in November with him fighting Tyson Fury in October? I mean, does Hearn expect Wladimir to destroy Fury in one round on October 29, and the hop back into the gym days later to fight Joshua in November? Come on, Hearn needs to be realistic with his pipe dreams, because this stuff doesn’t make sense at all, period.

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I’m sure Wladimir will be up for a fight against Joshua once he’s beaten Fury, but he sure as heck isn’t going to do it in November. It’s going to take time to negotiate that fight and to market it properly. I doubt Wladimir will agree to fight in the UK a second time once he’s won back his IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles off Fury. He’ll probably want that fight to be staged in Germany and I can’t blame him. Wladimir brings in huge crowds of 50,000+ fans in Germany. Why would Wladimir want to fight Joshua in the UK in front of 17,000 fans? I think Hearn needs to plant his feet back onto dry earth, because it’s totally unrealistic for him to think Wladimir is going to fight Joshua in November. Once Wladimir beats Fury, he’ll probably look to fight Deontay in a unification fight in the U.S rather than face Joshua. Wladimir-Wilder is a big fight in the U.S, and I think Wladimir would like that fight.