By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn can forget about trying to push Dillian Whyte onto Alexander Povetkin, as the Russian fighter is making it clear that he ONLY wants his WBA mandated title shot against Anthony Joshua now.
Povetkin fought David Price last Saturday when he didn’t have to on the undercard of the Joshua vs. Joseph Parker card at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. In a fight that was reminiscent of the Jack Dempsey vs. Jess Willard fight in July 1919, Povetkin (34-1, 24 KOs) knocked the giant 6’8” Price out in round 5, leaving him with a fractured nose and cuts inside his mouth and eye that required over 40 stitches to close.
Povetkin came into the fight with Price as the WBA mandatory challenger to Joshua. Hearn offered to let Povetkin to fight on the Joshua-Parker card to build up the fight between the Russian and Joshua. But instead of Hearn putting the Joshua vs. Povetkin fight together, he’s now talking about wanting to match AJ against Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller next in the summer and then possibly Deonay Wilder later this year.
Hearn also would like Povetkin to face Dillian Whyte in June, which is a crazy idea if you’re Povetkin. If Povetkin loses to Whyte, he would no longer be Joshua’s WBA mandatory challenger. Why on earth would Povetkin want to take a risky fight against Whyte when he would have so little to gain and so much to lose?
“I’m the mandatory challenger for Joshua,” Povetkin said via skysports.com. ”I look forward to the moment when I can compete against the best in the world. Anthony has four belts. I want this fight and I don’t even think about fighting someone else.”
Povetkin would be very dangerous for Joshua to fight if there’s not a referee that prevents inside fighting like the one that worked Joshua’s fight against Parker last weekend. Povetkin wouldn’t stand a chance against Joshua with that kind of a referee working the fight.
When Povetkin eventually does face Joshua, his team needs to do a good job of checking out the officiating style of the referee that’s assigned to the fight. Parker’s team should have done with the Italian referee that was assigned to the fight last weekend, because they could have avoided the problems that he caused with his methods of controlling the action.
It was a nice try by Hearn to get Povetkin, 38, to take a fight against Dillian Whyte, but it doesn’t look lke it’s going to work. Some boxing fans think Hearn is using Whyte as Joshua’s bodyguard to protect him from threats like Povetkin and Wilder. Whyte isn’t that good of a fighter though for him to be a gatekeeper type of fighter to block the arguably more talented fighters like Deontay and Povetkin from getting to Joshua.
If Hearn doesn’t have confidence in Joshua as a champion to defend his titles against Wilder and Povetkin, then perhaps he needs to convince him to vacate his belts. Hearn needs to give Povekin his title shot against Joshua because he’s earned it.
Whyte, 29, called out Povetkin last Saturday after his 5th round knockout win over Price. Whyte doesn’t have to worry about the outcome of a fight against Povetkin, because even if he loses to him, he’s still going to get a title shot against Joshua sooner or later, because the British boxing public wants to see them fight again and they’re both with Hearn’s Matchoom Boxing stable. Whyte can basically afford to call out anybody without worrying about what would happen if he loses. He’ll still get the title shot against Joshua.
Povetkin’s promoters at World of Boxing wants Joshua to come to Russia to fight him in Moscow at the 81,000 seat Luzhniki Stadium. That likely won’t happen if Hearn has any say so in the matter. Hearn likes the idea of Joshua fighting in the UK each time. It would be a risk if Hearn were to take Joshua out of his element and put him in a situation where he’s the visiting fighter and he has less control. We saw how things are favorable when Joshua is fighting at home last Saturday night.
The referee that worked the fight was pulling Parker off of Joshua all night long when he was fighting in close. Would something like that happen in Russia?
The WBA still hasn’t ordered the Joshua vs. Povetkin fight. It’s going to likely happen this year though, but Hearn can put it off if he makes the Joshua-Wilder unification fight. The unification fights come first, so Povetkin will still likely need to wait until 2019, even if the WBA orders the Joshua-Povetkin fight later this year. The negotiations have started for the Joshua vs. Wilder fight. Hearn wants both fighters to take an interim fight before facing each other in late 2018.
Having interim fights probably won’t make the Joshua vs. Wilder fight any bigger than it would be if Hearn simply made it next in the summer. Hearn wants Joshua to fight Miller, who he co-promotes, because he believes it’ll help make the Wilder fight bigger. I don’t think it will though. Miller has no fan base outside of the New York areas, and it won’t do anything for Joshua to fight him. If anything, Joshua could wind up looking bad if he runs from Miller like he did against Parker or if there’s another referee like in the last two fights.
Joshua could lose his titles one by one if he fails to defend them in a timely fashion against the mandatories. Joshua wanted to be the champion in winning the titles, but now that he’s being forced to defend them, he’s not so eager to do that. That’s why it’s bad to have a champion that holds more than one title, because it slows the process down for title defenses when they start dragging their feet or when they don’t have time to defend them because of their mandatory defenses.
“I will say it once again, the window for fighting Wilder is 2018, otherwise we will risk it not being an undisputed fight,” Hearn said to skysports.com.
Hearn needs to be a lot more aggressive in trying to make the Wilder vs. Joshua fight than he’s done in the past if he’s serious about wanting to make that fight.
The fight that Hearn SHOULD be making this summer is Joshua vs. Povetkin rather than wasting time making the Joshua-Miller fight. Hearn could make it a double-header with Joshua vs. Povetkin and Wilder v. Dominic Breazeale in a split site card on Showtime Boxing and Sky Box Office.