By Juan Flores: IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn confirms that he’ll be meeting this week with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber’ Wilder’s advisers Al Haymon and Shelly Finkel to plan a unification fight for 2018.
Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) is one of the 2 heavyweight champions the 27-year-old Joshua is targeting for 2018 to try and unify the division. The other belt holder is WBO champion Joseph Parker (25-0, 18 KOs), who could possibly be Joshua’s next opponent in the first quarter of 2018 if a deal can be hammered out between his promoter and Hearn.
Hearn was saying this week that he hadn’t been contacted by Wilder’s management to put together a fight between him and Joshua. But with Haymon and Finkel now beating with Hearn later this week to begin negotiations, he now can’t say that he’s had no contact with them. It’ll now be up to Hearn to show that he’s got the skills to put together a deal that will make both fighters’ happy. Hearn says he doesn’t know how much of a cut of the revenue Wilder’s management wants for a fight with Joshua.
”I’m sitting down with [Wilder’s representatives] Shelly Finkel and Al Haymon later this week to have our first conversations regarding Joshua vs. Wilder,” Hearn said to skysports.com. ”Hopefully we can find somewhere between reality and fantasy that suits all.”
Joshua wants the WBA and WBO titles, so it means Hearn will need to strike a deal with the promoters for Parker and Wilder if he wants to keep his fighter happy. As we’ve already seen, Joshua can still make big money defending his IBF and WBA heavyweight titles. He doesn’t necessarily need to add the WBC and WBO titles for him to make big time cash. Joshua’s loyal boxing fans will continue to turn out in high numbers to watch his fights live in the UK. Joshua is also bringing in a lot of PPV buys on Sky Box Office fighting the likes of Carlos Takam, Eric Molina and Dominic Breazeale. Even if Hearn is unable to put together fights against Wilder and Parker, Joshua will do just fine fighting the mostly no name contenders in the heavyweight division.
“I had a good meeting with AJ. His goal to try and become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world by the close of 2018 so, at present, to do that we must go through Parker and Wilder,” said Hearn to skysports.com.
If Hearn is able to make those fights for Joshua, he’s going to need to show more against those 2 fighters than he’s shown in his last couple of fights against Takam and Wladimir Klitschko. Joshua’s weight was in the 250s for both fights, and his stamina looked less than it should be. Joshua wants to win the last 2 titles in the heavyweight division to become the undisputed champion in the division.
If Joshua does accomplish his goal next year of become the 4-belt champion at heavyweight, he’ll have to deal with constant mandatory challengers for the belts, and it could be an eventual headache for him. The sanctioning bodies don’t always pick out the most talented contenders in the division to rate as No.1. We just saw that with the World Boxing Council making 39-year-old Bermane Stiverne the mandatory for Wilder’s WBC title. Last September, Parker had to defend his title against No.1 WBO Hughie Fury. Stiverne and Hughie looked like they didn’t belong in the top 15, let alone at No.1 with those 2 sanctioning bodies. Joshua could find himself bogged down with annoying mandatory defenses against contenders that have little in the way of talent, and who won’t do much to increase his popularity and add to his legacy in boxing.