By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Eddie Hearn says he has a deal that he already has a deal in position between IBF, WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and his WBA mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, but there’s still a possibility WBC champion Deontay Wilder could get the fight depending on his willingness to come to the UK for the match.
Hearn says that if Wilder wants the fight with Joshua, he’ll need to come to the UK. Hearn says the first fight between Joshua and Wilder will absolutely take place in the UK. If Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) wins, then there will be a second fight in the U.S.
This is a slightly plan than the one that Hearn had talked of previously in which the first Joshua-Wilder fight would take place in the UK, and the second one in the U.S. Hearn now says that the second fight will be in the U.S IF Wilder beats Joshua in the first fight. That’s obviously not a great deal for Wilder. So, what we could be looking at is two fights between Joshua and Wilder, if the first one is competitive, with both taking place in the UK.
The A-side angle that Hearn speaks of for the Joshua-Wilder fight could be abused in this case if BOTH fights take place in the UK. Wilder’s team are the one guaranteeing Joshua’s $50 million, so it seems more than a little out of place for him to be insisting the fight take place in the UK. I don’t think it’s going to fly unfortunately without the money offering dropping dramatically. I don’t think for a second Team Wilder is going to give Joshua $50 million for a fight that takes place in the UK. In cases like this, it’s better to have the promoter in charge of the negotiation rather than the fighter, Joshua, calling the shots, which is obviously happening. If Joshua blows the deal, then I don’t see him making $50 million fighting anyone else. If Joshua fights five or six times, he might get $50 million, but he might also get knocked out along the way.
“The first fight takes place in the UK. If Wilder wins, the next one takes place in the US. Anthony feels he is the A side, so it should happen in the UK,” Hearn said to Fighthype.com. “Deontay Wilder does not want this fight in the UK. He might take it but he doesn’t want it, trust me. It’s a disadvantage for him, just like it’s a disadvantage for Anthony in the US,” Hearn said.
If the Joshua vs. Wilder fight does take place next in September, October or November, then the World Boxing Association will need to make sure that he winner of this match faces the 38-year-old Povetkin (34-1, 24 KOs) next. Povetkin earned his mandatory spot by beating Christian Hammer by a 12 round unanimous decision last December. The heavyweight division is still very, very weak. When you have heavyweights earning title shots by beating former Tyson Fury victims like Hammer, it shows barren the division is of talent. Povetkin is starting to fight his age, as he’s been looking very beatable in his last three fights against David Price, Christian Hammer and Andriy Rudenko. In 2016, Povetkin looked and fought like superman in stopping Johann Duhaupas in the 6th round. Not even Wilder looked as good as Povetkin. However, Povetkin is suddenly looking slow, old and weaker than he was before, and it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to put up much of a fight against the Joshua-Wilder winner.
“We pretty much have a deal in place with Povetkin,” Hearn said Fighthype.com. “At the moment it looks like we are fighting him but that could change. At the moment the two options we have are we either sign for Wilder now to fight him next or we sign for Wilder now but fight him after Povetkin,” Hearn said.
It sounds like there’s only one real option that’s Povetkin for Joshua’s next fight. With the ideas that Hearn has about Wilder having to fight in the UK, and then beat Joshua in order to get the second ight in the U.S, it’s too heavily tilted in AJ’s favor. If Wilder and his team were to agree to that deal, it would be extremely surprising. It’s a rotten deal through and through. Wilder’s team pays Joshua $50 million just so they can get a fight against him in the UK? That’s crazy. And then when you add in that Wilder MUST beat Joshua in the UK to earn a second fight in the U.S, it suggests strongly that either Hearn/AJ don’t want the fight or the A-side power has gone to their heads. I wouldn’t rule that out. Sometimes when fighters become the A-side, they suddenly become very resistant to compromising. Everything becomes one-sided in the negotiations with fighters, and they end up losing out in the long run. If Joshua isn’t confident enough to fight outside of the UK, then what does that tell you about him?
I think Wilder wouldn’t mind fighting Joshua in the UK if it weren’t for the last two fights that took place there in Cardiff, Wales. Those fights both were disturbing to watch. In Joshua’s unification match against WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker last March, the referee was pulling Parker off of him when he was trying to fight on the inside. Parker could not fight on the inside without the referee pulling him away from Joshua. On a positive note, Joshua has never had a referee like that work one of his fights during his pro career. That type of referee might not interfere with Wilder’s game against Joshua, because Deontay doesn’t fight on the inside the way Parker does. Still, you just never know what you’re going to get. In Joshua’s fight before that against Carlos Takam, the referee stopped the fight in the 10th round after Takam was slightly hurt. It looked to some boxing fans like the referee was just looking for a reason to stop it. If Wilder fights Joshua in the UK with one of those types of referees, there’s no telling what could happen. Takam and Parker weren’t given rematches despite huge amount of criticism the referees received for those fights. Joshua moved on and the casual boxing public doesn’t seem to mind that he’s not going to give rematches to those fighters. If Wilder comes to the UK and he’s given a bad deal with the referee either stopping the fight too soon or doing something odd that negatively impacts his game, then there’s not much he can do about it. The fight will go down in the record books as a win for Joshua and him and is promoter Hearn will move on to the Povetkin fight. That’s why it’s important that the Joshua-Wilder fight take place in a neutral venue. Canada would be a great place. The boxing fans would be rooting for both fighters, and hopefully a good referee would be picked out that doesn’t place himself in the spotlight with his questionable decision-making during the fight.
It’s looking like the only way the Wilder-Joshua fight takes place is if Wilder can agree to a deal that greatly favors Joshua, both with the purse and with the location. If Wilder is willing to put up with Joshua getting ALL the advantages under the sun that a fighter can get, then the fight will probably happen. But if Wilder is looking for some advantages for himself, I think he’s going to be out of luck. Some fights aren’t meant to be made, and I think this is one of them. If the two never face each other, I think Joshua will regret it when he gets older and realizes that he should have been fair by agreeing to to fight in the U.S after Wilder’s team came up with the $50 million offer for him.