By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder says the Americans don’t know the name of IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. They only know Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) as the big heavyweight from the UK, Wilder says.
According to Wilder, Joshua is going to need to fight him for him to become a big name in the States, because he’s never going to become a star in the U.S without fighting him. Wilder sees Joshua as the champion of Britain only, and not a worldwide champion.
Joshua feels he doesn’t ever have to leave the UK for him to be a star. He’s become a star in his country, but he’s failed to grab a foothold in the U.S unfortunately. One reason for that is the handful of Joshua’s fights that have been piped into the U.S on Showtime have been ugly mismatches against Dominic Breazeale and Eric Molina. Joshua also fought inactive, past his prime 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko and had a devil of time trying to beat the former heavyweight champion last April. Joshua was knocked down and gassed out badly in that fight. If not for the dreadfully poor decision on Wladimir’s part to not finish the badly hurt Joshua off in the 6th, AJ would have lost the fight for sure.
“He [Joshua] may have his country behind him and that’s it,” Wilder said to ESPN.com. “Does he want to be remembered as a country-wide champion? Because he’s not worldwide [champion]. Over here in America they don’t even know his name. They just know him as a big guy from England. That’s fact.:
I hate to say it but I agree with Wilder. Joshua is NOT known in the U.S. Joshua doesn’t fight in the U.S. He only fights in the UK, and he’s generally been fighting a lot of weak opposition throughout his 5-year pro career. It’s not surprising that Joshua isn’t well known. When you only fight in your own country of the UK, then you’re not going to become a big star in the U.S. That’s not going to happen. I don’t think Joshua ever will become a star in America even if he fights Wilder in the States.
It takes years to become a star. Gennady Golovkin has been fighting continually in the U.S since 2012 is only now becoming a big name. Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn don’t seem interested in putting that kind of commitment in to try and break into the U.S markets to become a star there. Hearn and Joshua have a good thing going in the UK in fighting guys like Carlos Takam, Eric Molina, Charles Martin and Breazeale in front of large audiences.
Joshua probably wouldn’t be able to fight in front of equally big audiences if he fought in the U.S, because the casual boxing fans don’t know who he is. The ones that do know Joshua, don’t care that he won an Olympic gold medal in London in 2012. Stuff like that doesn’t hold value to the average American. They want to see good match-ups and exciting fights. I believe it used to matter to Americans when a fighter won an Olympic gold medal, but not anymore. Things seem to have changed.
The only good fighter that Joshua fought was Klitschko, and he was old at 41 and coming off of a loss and a 2-year layoff. Even then, Wladimir still almost beat him. Joshua is seen as the heavyweight of this era by many boxing fans, but it’s clearly not a progression from the previous era. It’s a step down in a major way. It’s just like when the Muhammad Ali era ended. You had the heavyweights that took over after he retired being lesser fighters that lacked his talent and charisma. Joshua doesn’t have Wladimir’s talent. That’s abundantly clear.
Wilder thinks Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is “stalling” by not looking to make the fight between them, and he may be right. Hearn seems to be in no real rush to make the Joshua-Wilder fight, and the only thing you can say about that is there’s possibly fear and trepidation on his part. Joshua, 28, is bringing in a lot of cash for Hearn’s Matchroom Sport promotional company in the UK. As long as the money keeps rolling in from Joshua’s fights, it’s all good. But once Joshua starts losing, which might not be far off, then the gravy train might come to a screeching halt.
Unfortunately for Hearn, he doesn’t have anyone else to take over Joshua’s place as the pay-per-view guy for the Sky Box Office cards. Hearn recently signed the faded Amir Khan to his Matchroom stable, but he’s nearing the end of his career. The same goes for Kell Brook. Hearn plans on matching them against each other at the end of 2018. Khan will likely be knocked cold by Brook, and his career will be finished for all intents and purposes. Brook isn’t going to last long either. As soon as Hearn matches him against a good junior middleweight like Jarrett Hurd, Jermell Charlo or Erislandy Lara, he’ll lose and he’ll likely retire after that. As such, you can argue that Hearn’s dragging his feet on putting together the Joshua-Wilder fight is one way for him to keep Joshua as a money machine to keep the dough rolling in. There’s guys that Joshua can beat with a 100 percent degree of certainty, and that’s pretty much all he’s being matched against nowadays. Wilder is not that kind of fighter. There’s a very real chance that Joshua loses to the lightning fast and incredibly powerful Deontay and loses BADLY by getting knocked out in front of the entire world. If Hearn can stall the Wilder fight for as long as possible, he may be able to wait him out until he’s lost some of his cat-like speed if not his punching power. Joshua being a slow, lumbering type of heavyweight, he stands a better chance against Wilder if he loses his speed and is reduced to just being a big hitter.
Amir Khan recently said that Joshua needs to go to the U.S and start fighting over there so he can increase his popularity. Khan understands that for Joshua to become a star in the huge U.S, he must fight there on a regular basis and not just have his matches piped into the States on Showtime boxing. Hearn hasn’t commented on Khan’s advice, but it’s likely that Joshua’s fights will continue to take place only in the UK and perhaps for the remainder of his career.
Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) has a fight coming up next month against unbeaten former Cuban amateur star Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs) on March 3 on Showtime Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Wilder, 32, says he’s going to do his part by basting out the 38-year-old Ortiz quickly. Wilder wants Hearn to start negotiating the fight with Joshua immediately after that fight. Whether that happens is doubtful. It’s believed that Hearn will feed American Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller to Joshua in the summer if he gets past WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) in their fight on March 31 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
At some point, Hearn will be ready to risk Joshua career by putting him in with Wilder, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. We’re likely going to see Hearn making excuses for why the Joshua-Wilder fight can’t take place by him saying that Wilder asked for too much money.