Joshua’s next potential opponent: Stiverne, Jennings or Breazeale

By Boxing News - 04/18/2016 - Comments

1-JOSHUATRAINING18By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s first defense of his new IBF crown will be on June 25 at the O2 Arena in London, UK. The opponent for Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) hasn’t been picked out yet, but his promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s got three American heavyweights – Bermane Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs), Bryant Jennings (19-2, 10 KOs), Eric Molina (25-3, 19 KOs) and Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) that are serious options for the 26-year-old Joshua.

Hearn had been planning on staging Joshua’s next fight on July 9, the same date as IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s rematch against Wladimir Klitschko, but Hearn is no longer talking about wanting to do that.

It’s a good thing. If Joshua had to compete against the Fury-Klitschko II fight, I think it would have been very, very bad idea. I’m surprised that Hearn even considered such a foolish plan like that. That would have been a HUGE fail if Hearn had put Joshua up against the Fury-Klitschko 2 fight, especially given that Hearn is looking to put Joshua in with a bottom fringe contender rather than one of the talents in the heavyweight division.

#9 WBC Bryant Jennings has lost his last two fights in defeats against Luis Ortiz and Klitschko. I can’t see what Jennings’ qualification would be for a fight against Joshua other than him losing his last fight.

I think it would be a horrible fight for the British boxing fans to have to pay to see on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. I mean, if were a freebee type of thing for the fans, then, yeah, it would be a decent stay busy fight for Joshua. But with Joshua’s next fight likely to be televised on PPV, it would just seem so wrong for Hearn to charge fans to see Joshua fight someone with an 0-2 record in his last two fights like Jennings.

“We expect the new IBF rankings to be out this week and with the interest from the U.S. I expect our next pick to be American,” Hearn said to espn.com. “Names like (Bermane) Stiverne, (Bryant) Jennings, (Eric) Molina and (Dominic) Breazeale are all in the mix and we are already planning a stacked card.”

Hearn is working on getting a U.S. television deal for Joshua with HBO or Showtime. Joshua’s fight against former IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin was televised on Showtime Boxing this month. It was just a one-fight deal though. If Hearn does get one of the U.S cable giants to agree to televise Joshua’s fights in the U.S, then he’s going to need to forget about having them shown on PPV.

That’s not going to fly. I mean, Hearn can do whatever he wants, but I can’t see anyone buying Joshua’s fights. Heck, even if Joshua were to fight WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, I don’t see that fight making it on PPV, because Wilder hasn’t branched over to PPV yet. He needs to fight a lot more against better opposition before he can ever hope to reach that level.

Top Rank plans on putting WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford on HBO PPV due to HBO not having enough dates for regular HBO this year. I’m sure Top Rank isn’t expecting a ton of buys for Crawford’s fight because he’s still an unknown with the casual boxing fans.

If Hearn is good with getting a few thousand PPV buys from the U.S fans for Joshua’s fights in America, then he can surely have his fights televised on PPV. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what he has in mind in having Joshua’s fights piped into the States. Joshua vs. Martin brought in 600,000 PPV buys on Sky Box Office in the UK.

Hearn is expected to hold a press conference next week to announce Joshua’s June 25 fight. It’s unclear whether he’ll have Joshua’s opponent picked out by then. Hearn wants to include former three-time world title challenger loser George Groves fighting on Joshua’s June 25 undercard against Martin Murray, who has also failed on three occasions to win world titles.

“I have been banging the AJ drum with Stephen and Peter for a while now and the reaction from AJ’s debut on Showtime in the U.S. has been very satisfying,” Hearn said to ESPN.com. “AJ is going to become the biggest star in global boxing so it’s important we partner up with a broadcaster that’s going to invest in him inside and outside the ring.”

If I were Showtime and HBO, I would hold off on signing Joshua until he proves himself against one of the talents in the division. I mean, Joshua was almost knocked out by Dillian Whyte last December, and Joshua also won a controversial gold medal in the 2012 Olympics. If you’re an executive for HBO and Showtime, the last thing you want to have is pie in your face if/when Joshua gets blasted into oblivion by the first quality opponent he faces.

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It would be really bad if HBO and Showtime signs Joshua to a three to four-fight deal, and he gets knocked out by a good heavyweight and they’re stuck having to eat the rest of the contract with Joshua going into a rebuilding phase against scrubs. If HBO or Showtime are going to start televising Joshua’s fights straightaway starting with his June 25 fight, I don’t think they’re going to get much value for their money if Joshua faces the likes of Stiverne, Molina, Jennings or Breazeale.

Those guys are all terribly flawed. #11 IBF Stiverne recently was soundly beaten by Deontay last year. Since then, Stiverne has fought only once in barely beating Derric Rossy by a close 10 round decision. Stiverne looked absolutely horrible in that fight. I realize it’s common practice for heavyweight champions to scrape the bottom of the top 15 rankings when making voluntary defenses of their titles, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S cable networks have to televise the mismatches to the American public.

The idea in putting on boxing on the major networks is to have competitive fights that the fans want to see, and that will spur them to keep watching fights. The networks obviously want boxing fans to subscribe or keep their subscriptions up to their premium networks, which cost quite a bit each month to the average person’s cable bill in the U.S. What good is it for HBO or Showtime to put on mismatches involving Joshua and bottom feeder heavyweights? None.

If I were an executive with HBO or Showtime, any deal I would have with Hearn and Joshua to televise his fights would be based on whether or not he’s going to be facing heavyweights that are approved by HBO or Showtime. If Hearn is just going to match Joshua with fodder for his next two or three fights, then HBO or Showtime needs to hold off and only televise when Joshua faces someone that they feel are quality fighters that will help their networks.

If they have to wait a year or two before Hearn finally puts Joshua in with a quality opponent, then so be it. That’s how I would do it if I were one of the network executives with HBO or Showtime. I would tell Hearn that it won’t work if he’s going to try and have fights involving Joshua and lower level opponents piped into the States, because the networks can’t afford to have their boxing fans fleeing their network due to them showing dull mismatches.