By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn has plans for his fighter Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) to make his first defense of his IBF heavyweight title three months from now on July 9 at the huge Wembley Stadium in London, UK against an opponent still to be determined.
The fact that Hearn is scheduling Joshua’s fight on July 9 is obviously a move to take advantage of a big fight taking place on the same night between IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschko in Manchester, UK. I don’t see the logic of this undercutting move on Hearn’s part of staging Joshua’s fight on the same night as the Fury vs. Klitschko 2 fight, because it’s not as if the fights will be both televised on Sky Box Office.
There won’t be enough cash to share all the loot with all the fighters involved. After Joshua takes his big cut of the cash, there won’t be enough to make it worthwhile for Fury. At the same time, if Hearn puts Joshua in Wembley Stadium on the same night as Klitschko-Fury, he might have an empty stadium for Joshua’s fight. I don’t see the logic of this move.
“This is only the beginning. He’s [Joshua] got aspirations to unify all the belts. We’ve got a little something planned on July 9 at Wembley Stadium. He’s going to go through everybody,” said Hearn to skysports.com.
Oh brother, I think Hearn is starting to lose it. Joshua beats a solid talent in Charles Martin (23-1-1, 21 KOs) with a shot he didn’t see coming last Saturday night, and all of a sudden Hearn is blabbering about Joshua beating “everybody.” I think Hearn needs to get his feet back on the ground because he’s clearly drunk from happiness right now and not thinking clearly. We all know who Joshua will be fighting on July 9. It’s obvious that Hearn is going to stick domestic level fighter Dereck Chisora (25-5, 17 KOs) in there with Joshua if Chisora doesn’t get smashed out by Kubrat Pulev (22-1, 12 KOs) in their fight next month on May 7 at the Barclaycard Arena, in Hamburg, Germany.
Chisora isn’t going to have much time to prepare for the Joshua fight, is he? He’ll have the exact amount of time that Dillian Whyte had to prepare for his fight against Joshua after his bout against Brian Minto. I can see Chisora limping into the ring against Joshua on July 9, still licking his wounds from the Pulev fight. It won’t even be sporting. Besides that, who would want to come see Joshua fight Chisora at Wembley stadium? I could see a fight like that taking place at a shopping center where the tickets are complimentary.
“This is going to be the biggest star in world boxing if he’s not already. He’s the real deal and he’ll beat everybody,” said Hearn about Joshua.
This is just too funny. Joshua whips a blinded Martin, and now all of a sudden Hearn is anointing him as the “biggest star” in the sport. How about Joshua beating someone good that has his eyes open when he throws his shots. It wasn’t even fair because Martin didn’t see the punch that Joshua threw at him. You can’t count that as a real win. I want to put Hearn’s theory to a test if he is open to allowing Joshua fight a live body on July 9 rather than someone wheeled into the ring.
Joshua needs to fight someone like Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz, Joseph Parker, Carlos Takam or Alexander Povetkin. In other words, someone that is going to be going after Joshua from the first bell, looking to take his head off with each punch. I think that’s what Hearn needs, especially if he wants to pull in enough fans to fill Wembley Stadium. That’s a huge 80,000 seat stadium. He’s not going to fill it if he has Joshua fight Chisora. Who would pay to see that? I think Hearn needs someone to sit him down and put things in perspective for him. Yeah, Joshua just beat Martin last Saturday night, but he didn’t beat any big name fighters with an established record. Martin only had that one fight against Vyachelsav Glazkov on his resume. The rest of his wins were against weaker opposition. Martin was still untested.
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