By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn wants the unification fight between his fighter IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) and American WBC champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) to be on pay-per-view not only in the UK, but also in the U.S.
Right now, if the Joshua-Wilder fight were to be televised in the States, it would almost certainly be on non-PPV. The reason for that is because Wilder is not a big star in the U.S and neither is Joshua. The American boxing public has only seen two or three of Joshua’s fights on Showtime, and those were mismatches against weak opposition in Charles Martin, Eric Molina and Dominic Breazeale.
Joshua hasn’t fought anyone good. He’s now about to fight Wladimir Klitschko on April 29, but even that isn’t a good opponent because the Ukrainian fighter is 41-years-old, and hasn’t fought in 2 years since his round unanimous decision loss to Tyson Fury in 2015.
Wilder hasn’t been fighting good opposition since he won the WBC title. He’s defended his title four times, but against weak opponents in Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas, Artur Szpilka and Chris Arreola.
“We want to unify against Deontay Wilder,” Hearn said to RingTV.com. “Joshua against Wilder is an incredible fight in the U.S. But I still feel they need to build Deontay more in the States and listen, we need to build Anthony in the States as well. But I want that fight to be a pay-per-view fight over here and a pay-per-view fight in the UK, and then we can go back to the purses in the olden days with the heavyweights.”
If Hearn wants to build Joshua into a star in the States, then he needs to change the way he matches him by putting him only against the best rather than picking out fighters from the bottom of the rankings to match him. Dominic Breazeale and Eric Molina were both fringe level contenders that were picked from near the bottom of the rankings for Joshua to fight.
How do you turn Joshua into a star in the States when he’s fighting fringe level contenders or old guys like 41-year-olld Klitschko? Joshua needs to be fighting in the U.S rather than in the UK. Hearn obviously is having Joshua fight in the UK, because he sells out arenas. But if the UK is going to be Joshua’s focus rather than in the U.S, then you can’t expect the American boxing fans to start supporting Joshua and wanting to pay to see him on PPV in the States. It doesn’t work like that. You have to commit to the country the way that Lennox Lewis did when he became a PPV attraction in the States many years ago when the U.S fans still cared about the heavyweight division.
Joshua will be fighting Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) on April 29 in front of 90,000 boxing fans at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The fight will be televised on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK. Obviously, if Hearn got his way, the Joshua-Klitschko fight would be televised on PPV in the States. That’s not going to happen.
Wladimir is a foreigner and so is Joshua. Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis fought on PPV seven times in the U.S during his career in fights against Andrew Golota, Evander Holyfield [x 2], Michael Grant, David Tua, Hasim Rahman and Mike Tyson. The Lewis-Tyson fight pulled in 1,950,000 PPV buys on June 8, 2002. That was a long time ago though. I’m not sure that Joshua can become a star in the States the way Lewis did.
Back when Lewis fought on PPV in the States, the heavyweight division was still a popular one with the Americans. That was during Mike Tyson’s era. Since Tyson retired, the American boxing public has lost interest in the heavyweight division during the Klitschko era. I don’t see Joshua being able to revive it no matter how much Hearn is hoping he can. Wilder is not a popular fighter in the States with the casual fans, and his fight against Gerald Washington likely won’t transform him into one.
For his part, Wilder is defending his WBC title against #10 WBC challenger Gerald Washington (18-0-1, 12 KOs) on February 26 on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox and Fox Deportes at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. This will be Wilder’s first fight since tearing his right bicep and breaking his right hand in his last fight against Chris Arreola.
Well, Hearn can insist that Showtime televise the Joshua-Wilder fight on pay-per-view, but that doesn’t mean the fight is going to be a success. You never know though. Maybe 100,000 boxing fans will want to purchase it. If Hearn has low expectations for the Joshua vs. Wilder fight as far as PPV numbers go, it should do so-so numbers. But if Hearn is thinking that the Joshua vs. Wilder fight will pull in 500,000 to 1 million+ pay-per-view buys in the States, then he’s kidding himself.
I don’t think the fight will ever do numbers like that. Likewise, I do not ever see Joshua bringing in huge numbers on PPV in the States. I can’t see it. There are a number of things working against him. First of all, the heavyweight division isn’t a popular one in the States. The division is too weak and filled with boring fighters that fight at a snail’s pace. The U.S boxing fans like to see action, and they like to see competitive fights. Joshua is never in competitive fights. His fights are mismatches on paper and in reality.
How in the world can Joshua ever win over the U.S boxing fans with him fighting guys like Breazeale, Klitschko, Molina and Dillian Whyte. Joshua needs to fight the better fighters like Luis Ortiz, Deontay Wilder and Joseph Parker an continue to fight those guys rather than going back to fighting the Breazeale types. That’s not going to happen though. Joshua will likely continue to be put in mismatches over and over again in the future and he’s not going to win a lot of boxing fans in the States, because the fans like to see competitive matches.
Instead of Hearn putting it on Wilder and his management to try and build him into a bigger name, he needs to try and make Joshua a more entertaining fighter. Hearn needs to have Joshua work on his speed, and him lose some of that unnecessary muscle he’s carrying around. If Joshua got lighter, he’d probably be faster. I think Joshua looked a lot better when he weighed 220lbs during the Olympics compared to now with him weighing around 250 with all the muscle he’s packed on since turning pro in 2013.
“They’ll be no small fights after this,” Hearn said in talking about Joshua’s next fight after his April 29 fight against Wladimir Klitschko. “You can’t earn the kind of money he’s going to earn in this fight (with Klitschko) and then take 25% to fight someone else. We’ll go straight in. He fancies the Wilder fight.”
The Klitschko fight is going to spoil Joshua and Hearn, but they’re going to need to realize that not all of his fights are going to be big ones. The Klitschko fight is a career payday. I can’t see Joshua ever getting another payday like that. The division is dead right now. Once Joshua fights Deontay Wilder, it’s going to be a slow period where Joshua needs to agree to smaller paydays fighting the likes of Joseph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, Luis Ortiz, Dillian Whyte and Carlos Takam. Maybe Joshua can eventually get some nice paydays against former Olympians in the future, but those won’t be on the same level as the Klitschko fight.
I don’t think Hearn realizes how much different things are in the U.S compared to the UK. Hearn can certainly wish that Joshua turns into a PPV attraction in the U.S someday, but it’s probably not going to happen without a lot of things falling into place. Joshua will need to fight in the U.S on a regular basis like Gennady Golovkin does, which isn’t going to happen because Hearn won’t want to give up all that sweet cash that Joshua makes from the large crowds he attracts to his fights in the UK. Joshua will also need to have a ton of high caliber opponents that face him over and over again. In other words, no more soft match-making by Hearn for Joshua like he’s been doing since 2013. Again, that’s another thing that is unlikely to ever happen. If given the choice to either match Joshua against a dangerous threat like Luis Ortiz or Dominic Breazeale, I see Hearn matching him against Breazeale rather than Ortiz. The match-making needs to change for Joshua for him to become a star in the U.S and I don’t see that happening. The last thing that Joshua has going against him is he’s not really an explosive one-punch type of knockout artist. Joshua seems to push his punches as if he’s meeting resistance when he throws his power shots rather than someone having the flexibility and hand speed to land exploding head shots like the way Deontay Wilder punches.