Haye believes Joshua will sign for Wilder fight if $50M offer is real

By Boxing News - 04/26/2018 - Comments

Image: Haye believes Joshua will sign for Wilder fight if $50M offer is real

By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division belt holder David Haye thinks Anthony Joshua will agree to the $50 million offer made to him and his promoter Eddie Hearn if the offer is real for a unification fight against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. Shelly Finkel, the manager for Wilder, shocked the boxing world on Wednesday when he revealed that he’d made a significant $50 million offer to Joshua.

If Joshua holds out for $69 million, which some believe he might do, then he’ll likely miss out on Wilder fight, because he’s not going to accept the $12.5 million flat fee offer that Hearn offered him recently. That move by Hearn looked like something out of the amateur hour. It kind of showed over-matched Hearn is in making the bigger fights. It’s too bad Joshua doesn’t have a co-promoter with some experience in putting together mega-fights, because Hearn might blow it with his ham-handed attempt at putting together the Joshua-Wilder fight. Joshua needs someone like Bob Arum or Oscar De La Hoya to be working on the Wilder fight.

“Has he [Wilder] got $50m? If he does it will possibly happen,” Haye said to skysports.com. ”If he puts $50m up for a no-strings-attached fight, I’m sure AJ will sign it – what heavyweight wouldn’t?”

Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about Joshua signing the fight. We’re already hearing that Joshua originally asked for 50 million in pounds, not dollars, for a Wilder fight. If Joshua holds out for $69 million for a fight with Wilder, he might as well forget it for the remainder of his career, because that’s crazy money. Wilder’s team has given Joshua it a take-it-or-leave-it $50 million offer, which is supposed to expire on Thursday. If Joshua doesn’t like that offer, then so be it. The fight won’t happen then.

Wilder’s manager Finkel reportedly sent a letter to Hearn stating that there’s no point in meeting with him unless AJ agrees to the $50 million for the fight. Hearn is in New York for his fighter Daniel Jacobs’ WBA middleweight title eliminator match against Maciej Sulecki this Saturday night in Brooklyn. Hearn wants to meet with Wilder’s advisers/managers Al Haymon Finkel, who for some reason, he refers to as ‘Shirley’ instead of his name ‘Shelly.’

”It all has to start with Anthony Joshua accepting the $50million offer that he asked for, which is also by far the largest guarantee and largest purse any heavyweight champion in history has ever made,” Finkel said to Hearn via boxingnewsandviews.com.”Until then, it would be non-productive to meet. Please have Anthony accept the offer that he asked for and let’s get this fight made.”

I totally agree with Mr. Finkel. Why meet with Hearn to hear him give the run around if Joshua isn’t willing to accept the $50 million?

If Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) wants the fight with the unbeaten 6’7” Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs), he’s going to need to accept the $50 million offer that was made to him, because it appears that Finkel isn’t going to bother meeting with Hearn until he hears that Joshua has accepted.

It’s unclear why Hearn wants to meet with Finkel and Hearn in person for. If Joshua hasn’t accepted the offer, then why should Finkel and Haymon waste their precious time meeting with him? I mean, is Hearn going to start asking for them to sweeten the pot by bumping up the offer to Joshua to $60+ million for the Wilder fight? It doesn’t make sense for them to meet with Hearn until Joshua gives the green light to the fight by accepting the $50 million smackers that are on the table. Once AJ says, ‘I agree,’ then Finkel and Haymon can meet with them. However, if Joshua fails to agree to the lucrative deal, then it might be pulled off the table by Team Wilder. Joshua can’t afford to take his time in agreeing to that kind of sweet cash.

Haye thinks the Joshua-Wilder fight won’t take place until 2019. Just why he feels that way is unknown. I don’t think the fight will happen until one of the two are over-the-hill, and the interest in the fight is absolutely gone. If Joshua isn’t willing to agree to $50 million now, it shows you how reluctant he is in sharing the ring with the devastatingly powerful Wilder. If Joshua would rather fight guys like Carlos Takam, Alexander Povetkin and Joseph Parker, then there’s not much you can do.