By Marcus Richardson: Eddie Hearn thinks he’ll have IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for the remainder of his pro career. Hearn believes they have a good thing going right now with his fights selling well on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. He feels that he gets along really well with the 28-year-old Joshua.
It’s presumptuous of Hearn to believe Joshua won’t depart Matchroom Sport once he starts up his own promotional company. Joshua can make even more money once he starts promoting his own fights. He’d be in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. area where he pockets huge paychecks for each fight. Joshua will need to keep winning of course for him to make the really huge Mayweather level money.
“I believe we’ll be with Anthony Joshua for the rest of his career,” said Hearn to Sky Sports Toe to Toe. “Will he ever want to go with his own promotional company? I don’t think so. If he does, we’ll shake hands, and I’ll wish him Godspeed. He’ll move on,” said Hearn.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Joshua is gone after he finishes his existing promotional contract with Hearn. But if Joshua does stay with Hearn his entire career, he will make a lot of money with his fights being televised on Sky Box Office each time he fights. Joshua will need to keep winning for him to remain a star If all of a sudden, he starts losing the way 2000 Olympic gold medalist Audley Harrison was losing towards the end of his career, then his value as a pay-per-view former will certainly decline.
In other news about Joshua, Hearn wants to put together the fight with WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker in the next couple of weeks. However, Hearn says he only wants to pay Parker 30 percent of the revenue for the fight. He says that will come out to between $7-8 million for Parker. Hearn says that if he pays Parker 35 percent, then it would mean that Joshua will get the same amount of money fighting him as he did in his previous fight against his mandatory challenger Carlos Takam.
In Hearn’s mind, Joshua should make more money fighting Parker than he did Takam, because it’s a bigger fight and a unification. It doesn’t make sense to Hearn if he has to tell Joshua he’s getting the same money as he made fighting Takam. The problem is that Parker doesn’t want to be paid mandatory challenger money at 30 percent for a fight against Joshua. Parker wants a better deal than the one Takam received, because he’s a world champion.
“Let’s not beat around the bush,” said Hearn. “He wants to knock those two [Wilder and Parker] out. Does a heavyweight world champion deserve 35 percent in a unification fight? There is that argument. What I look at is the numbers. Anthony Joshua will earn the same money against Joseph parker as he did against Carlos Takam,” said Hearn.
Joshua might make the same as he made against Takam in fighting Parker, but he’ll have the chance to win the WBO heavyweight title. According to Hearn, Joshua is set for life financially, and he’s now just working for his legacy. If that is indeed true, then he must fight Parker for his WBO heavyweight title while he’s still at the top of his game. Judging by how Joshua appears to staring to slip a little as a fighter, he needs to fight Parker right now before he loses more from his game.
If Joshua can win the WBO title, it would give him 3 of the 4 heavyweight title belts. The only one remaining for Joshua to capture is the WBC title, which is in the possession of the dangerous Deontay Wilder. Hearn says he doesn’t want to give Wilder a 50-50 deal financially. He feels that by Joshua coming to the negotiation tables with 3 of the 4 world titles in his possession, he’ll be able to take away any argument Wilder and his management has that he deserves a 50-50 deal.
When asked how much of a percentage cut does Parker deserve for the Joshua fight, Hearn said, “30 percent. We don’t even want to go 30 percent. We’ll do it. 30 percent is maybe $7, 8 million. Wilder wants 50-50. That ain’t right at this point, and when we win 3 belts, it certainly isn’t going to be 50-50,” said Hearn.
It’s quite likely that Wilder and his management team won’t be fazed by Joshua having 3 of the 4 world titles. They’ll likely point out that Joshua won all of his titles against weak champions. Joshua captured his IBF title off Charles Martin, who many boxing fans saw as a paper champion. Joshua picked up the WBA title after beating an old and inactive 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko. Joshua almost lost that fight against a past his best Klitschko. It was not Klitschko at nearly his best. He hadn’t fought in 2 years, and hadn’t won a fight since 2014. Joshua got Wladimir at the right time in his career. If Joshua beats Joseph Parker, he will have again beaten a flawed heavyweight. Wilder’s management will likely point out that Joshua’s belts mean nothing given the guys he beat to win them.