By Eric Thomas: Eddie Hearn says he had a “positive” first meeting with the management for Deontay Wilder on Thursday in New York to discuss a unification fight with Anthony Joshua for 2018.
Judging from the comments from Hearn, who promotes Joshua, things went well with Wilder’s management in their talks for a big money unification. If Hearn can wrap the deal up for the Joshua-Wilder fight in 2018, then he can turn his attention to making the Joshua vs. Joseph Parker unification fight for early next year.
Wilder is a fight Joshua wants. His goal is to unify the division, and WBC heavyweight champion Wilder has one of the titles that he wants.
It’s important that Hearn gets the deal done between Joshua and Wilder for 2018, because there’s too much of a chance that one or both of them heavyweights will get beaten in the near future. Despite Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) being 5 years old than the 27-year-old Joshua at 32, he appears to be fighting at a higher level than him right now.
Joshua has put on too much muscle weight in the last year, and it’s now slowing him down and causing him to fatigue in his fights. If either of them has a chance of being beaten in the near term, it’s probably Joshua, given his increasing weight.
“I think there’s a willingness from both camps to do it next. We also talked about waiting until summer,” said Hearn to Sky Sports News about the Wilder vs. Joshua negotiations in New York. “There are lots of different permutations right now, different venue options as well, talk of one fight in America and one in the UK. But also the understanding that this is a huge fight and one we must get made in 2018,” said Hearn.
Setting up 2 fights for the Joshua-Wilder fight is smart. The first fight makes sense to stage in the UK, s that’s where it has the best chance of making the most amount of money right now. Perhaps if enough casual boxing fans see the fight in the U.S, they’ll be interested in seeing the rematch if they stage in Las Vegas, Nevada or New York. The ticket prices can be increased to bring in more revenue for the fight. It still likely won’t match the kind of money that can be pulled in if both fights take place in the UK in a large stadium like Wembley in London.
It’s not surprising that the negotiations are running smoothly between Wilder’s people and Hearn. Wilder has some very good advisers in Al Haymon and Shelly Finkel. Those guys are smart, and they’re easy to work with. They obviously are going into the negotiations with a figure in mind of what they want for the purse split for the Joshua-Wilder fight.
“We look at the venues, crunch the numbers and get to the nitty gritty of negotiations, which will be over the next couple of weeks,” said Hearn.
What’s unclear is when the first Joshua vs. Wilder will take place. Hearn is also in negotiations with WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker for a fight with Joshua in February or March of 2018. That fight will likely be the next one for Joshua followed by a summer unification fight against Wilder. Tyson Fury could be the third fight for Joshua if he’s able to get cleared by the UK Anti-Doping agency and British Boxing Board of Control. Fury will also need to lose some weight for him to get down to his fighting weight of 250 pounds before he can fight Joshua.