By Scott Gilfoid: British promoter Frank Warren says he wants to see IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) face WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs), because it’s a fight involving 2 big guys with a ton of punching power.
Warren questions Joshua’s punch resistance. He sees Joshua as being vulnerable when taking big shots, and he thinks that Wilder will put him on the floor if he lands one of his big punches.
Wilder and Joshua are expected to face each other in 2018 in a unification fight. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn could foul things up between them though by insisting that Wilder face Dillian Whyte first. Hearn thinks that Wilder will build himself up by fighting Dillian Whyte. Warren doesn’t see the point in Wilder fighting Whyte, as he feels that Joshua is the one that he should be fighting. Warren also wonders whether boxing fans would watch a fight between Wilder and Whyte on PPV.
Hearn is said to be offering Wilder $4 million to fight Whyte. That’s a lot of money for a fight that might not receive a lot of PPV buys on Sky Box Office.
“I look at Wilder. He’s a big puncher. That’s the fight I’d like to see,” said Warren to secondsout about Wilder vs. Joshua. “I want to see that fight because they’re both big punchers, and see who’s got the better chin. He took a good shot against [Bermane] Stiverne. Stiverne’s not a bad puncher, and he hit him with a really good shot when he won the title, and he didn’t move him,” said Warren in talking about Wilder getting nailed with one of Stiverne’s best shots in their fight in 2015. “So he seems to have a good chin. I don’t know if he can take an Anthony Joshua shot. I got no idea, but I’ll tell you something, if he connects with anything on Joshua, he’s putting him on the floor, because you seen him wobbled against Dillian Whyte. He’s got a big heart, but he’s there to be hit. He’s vulnerable,” said Warren.
I totally agree with Warren. I think there’s a very good chance that Wilder will blast Joshua out with a single right hand when the two of them face each other in the future. I can’t even give a year for when Joshua and Wilder will face each other unfortunately, because Hearn is still insisting that Deontay faces his stable fighter Whyte. If Wilder refuses to accommodate Hearn by taking this fight, does he give him the Joshua fight or does he dig in his heels and refuse to let him take the fight? There’s no way of knowing. This is kind of new from Hearn. Joshua is a very important cog for Hearn’s Matchroom Sport promotion. He’s their money maker. If Hearn lets Joshua fight Wilder, he could get knocked cold, and that might stop the flow of the golden eggs that he’s been laying steadily for him in beating the over-matched opposition that he’s been putting him in with.
It’s clear that Joshua has both a chin and a stamina problem. While there were some boxing fans that attributed Joshua’s stamina problems in the past to him dealing with some touch opposition that pushed him to the edge, it became clear last Saturday that he has some serious cardio problems that need fixing. Joshua doesn’t help his situation with him getting steadily bigger with each fight. This isn’t a case of Joshua just getting bigger due to him growing, it’s more of a case of him getting bigger because he won’t stop lifting weights. It’s a self-inflicted problem on his part. Joshua saying that he thinks he’s going to stay the same size he is now is not a good sign. That tells me that Joshua recognizes that his huge bulk isn’t helping him, but he’s going to keep hitting the weights anyway.
When you get a fighter that knows that he’s hurting his body with certain training practices and he choose to continue them, it tells you that it won’t be long before that fighter is suffering losses left and right. Joshua isn’t getting better as a fighter. He’s getting worse. And that 10-year business that Hearn has been talking about with Joshua ruling that heavyweight division for a decade, it’s a pipe dream. Joshua’s reign could end in 2018 if Hearn lets him fight Deontay Wilder. Heck, Joshua might lose to Joseph Parker and Dillian Whyte at this point.
Wilder is going to go after Joshua’s chin immediately when they face each other in 2018 or should I say, if they face each other next year. Hearn seems to be sending mixed messages about whether he wants Wilder to fight Joshua. Hearn’s promotional company Matchroom Sport has become extremely reliant in Joshua as their PPV guy. if the heavily muscled Joshua starts getting knocked out left and right, it could leave Matchroom in a bad position. They don’t have anyone else to put on PPV other than Joshua. Matchroom has a lot of good fighters like Scott Quigg, Josh Taylor, Ryan Burnett, Jamie McDonnell and Luke Campbell, but he doesn’t have any PPV guys to replace Joshua.
Warren thinks Joshua should be matched against Dillian Whyte. He thinks that would be a good fight. It’s a match that Whyte deserves given how competitive his right with Joshua was in 2015. Hearn is saving Whyte for a fight against Joshua in either late 2018 or later in 2019. What Hearn wants to do is wait until Whyte wins a world title before matching him against Joshua. The problem is that it could take a long time for that to happen unless Hearn can get Wilder to accept the $4 million he’s offered him.
“If I was his manager, I’d say, ‘Why do I want to fight Dillian Whyte for? I want to fight Joshua,’” said Warren about Wilder. “I don’t blame Dillian Whyte, of course [for wanting to fight Wilder]. I don’t know if it’s a big pay-per-view fight [Wilder vs. Whyte]. $4 million, are people going to watch it? I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. Dillian Whyte is entitled to a rematch with Joshua. They had a good fight, didn’t they? He wobbled Joshua. Make that one,” said Warren in saying that Eddie Hearn should make Joshua vs. Wilder instead of Wilder-Whyte. “That’s a nice match. I’d have rather seen Dillian Whyte in there last Saturday than Takam,” said Warren.
Whyte wobbled Joshua in the 2nd round in their fight 2 years ago. Whyte suffered a shoulder injury in round 2, and he was ineffective after that. It was a luck break for Joshua. Without a shoulder injury, Whyte would have stood a very good chance to beat Joshua. The fight was competitive enough to where Joshua and Whyte should have already fought each other in a rematch.
Hearn has been saving the fight up. It’s likely that Hearn saw how close Whyte came to beating Joshua the last time, so he elected to keep him on a separate patch. Hearn hasn’t taken too many risks with Joshua during his 4-years as his promoter other than the fight with Wladimir Klitschko in April of this year. Of course, Wladimir wasn’t the same fighter he’d been in his prime years. Even with Wladimir at 41-years-old, and coming off a 2-year-old layoff, he still almost beat Joshua. What does that tell you about Joshua? It tells me that Joshua will need to be matched carefully for him to even have another year in his reign as the top heavyweight in boxing. You can forget about the 10-year reign that Hearn has been talking about. That’s not going to happen, especially with the way Joshua keeps putting on more muscle with each fight. Joshua has packed on 30 pounds of muscle in just 4 years. That’s an incredible amount of weight for someone to add to their frame in just 4 years in the sport of boxing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhU79z1qhRo