Hearn says Deontay Wilder’s team never contacted him to make fight

By Boxing News - 11/07/2017 - Comments

Image: Hearn says Deontay Wilder’s team never contacted him to make fight

By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn says no one from heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s team approached him to start negotiations for a fight against his star fighter Anthony Joshua. Hearn says it was he who contacted Wilder’s team about having him fight his stable fighter Dillian Whyte on February 3.

Hearn thinks Team Wilder is only talking about the Joshua fight now so they can create interest in Wilder to make him a more popular fighter worldwide by name dropping. In other words, Team Wilder is making Deontay more popular the easy way by throwing around Joshua’s name all the time left and right to get the boxing fans to take notice of him.

Hearn says he doesn’t blame Wilder and his team for doing so, as he would do the same thing if he were in their position. But he wants the fans and media to be clear, Wilder’s never approached him to make a fight between Joshua and him. It’s just a bunch of rubbish, says Hearn.

“He’s building his whole profile off of Anthony Joshua,” said Hearn to Thaboxingvoice in talking about Wilder. “If his people want this fight so bad, how come we had no communication and no approach from one member from his enormous team, where everybody seems to be involved. There’s only one person to talk to regarding the Anthony Joshua fight, and that’s me. Who do I talk to? Lou Dibella? I think so. Jay Deas? Possibly. Shelly Finkel? Maybe. Al Haymon? Maybe. I am the only one proactively reaching out to their people to talk about starting conversation, and the Dillian Whyte fight. This is all complete rubbish, a complete farce to try and get some publicity,” said Hearn.

Wilder’s adviser Shelly Finkel said that he contacted Hearn 6 weeks ago about making the fight, but he failed to replay when he asked him when he could get the Joshua fight for Wilder. Finkel says Hearn was interested in matching Whyte against Wilder. That was Hearn’s sole interest with Wilder. He wanted to get a title shot for his fighter Whyte, who isn’t well-known in the U.S.

“Don’t call the bluff of Anthony Joshua,” said Hearn. ”He has zero fear of fighting Deontay Wilder, the most feared heavyweight,” said Hearn while laughing. “They just fed him Bermane Stiverne. He didn’t throw a punch or land a punch. This is a guy that got into the mandatory position for a world heavyweight title. What did he box, once in 3 years? Did you see him on the scales? This man can’t talk about being a real heavyweight,” said Hearn about Wilder. “He’s never had a proper heavyweight fight. He’s had what? 39 fights? Anthony Joshua in his 19th fight, he was unifying the division with Klitschko. In Deontay Wilder’s 19th fight, he was on an undercard in Cancun,” said Hearn.

Hearn clearly has a negative perception of Wilder. It seems like Hearn wants to devalue Wilder so he can get him to come in at a lesser price for a fight against Joshua. Hearn did the same thing with WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker. He downgraded him after his recent successful title defense against Hughie Fury. Team Parker thinks Hearn did this so he can get Parker to agree to a smaller percentage.

After Hearn finished venting about Wilder, he took a little more pleasant approach by saying he does want to make the fight. However, Hearn then went at length to talk about the difference between the amount of fans that Wilder is pulling in for his fights compared to Joshua, which is his way of pointing out that he’s going to likely offer less money than what Team Wilder’s management wants.

”This fight will happen. I have no idea what split they want. I tell you what. When you sell only 5,000 tickets in New York, and we’re selling 78,000 in Cardiff, you better get realistic. One thing is for sure, we want the fight, and we want this fight ASAP,” said Hearn in talking about Joshua wanting the Wilder fight.

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