By Scott Gilfoid: Despite Tyson Fury stating that his fight against Deontay Wilder is still on, promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing is saying that he’s heard from his sources that fight WON’T be taking place in November.
Hearn isn’t sure if it will happen in December either, but he’s hoping it does because he wants WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) to get another win under his belt in order to increase his popularity for a unification fight against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for April 13. Hearn has no doubts in his mind that Wilder will beat the ring rusty Fury when/if they face each other in 2018.
Hearn doesn’t say why the Wilder-Fury fight won’t be happening in November. It’s anyone’s guess as far as why the fight wouldn’t happen then.
“I heard Frank Warren was involved to get the money together for the offer to Anthony Joshua, which signals alarm bells in itself,” Hearn said to Fighthype. “To go on another network, which is a rival network than the one Joshua is contracted to, so we couldn’t have taken it anyway. Maybe they were always going to fight Fury. I’m not sure that fight happens yet, Fury vs. Wilder. It might get signed, it might get made, but I talked to people today and they say it’s definitely not happening in November, but who knows, maybe in December. It’s a good fight. He’s [Wilder] got to fight someone. People say to me, ‘You must be devastated Fury is fighting Wilder.’ I’m delighted, because I think Wilder wins that fight comfortably, and that makes the fight with Joshua an absolute classic in 2019,” Hearn said.
We’ll see whether the Wilder vs. Fury fight does take place or not in 2018. The fight will need to get made soon though if they want to start marketing it with the boxing public to make it the monster fight that it needs to be for them to make huge money.
Joshua, 28, had the chance to face Wilder in September instead of Povetkin, but he chose to take the easier fight against the 38-year-old Povetkin. There are a lot of rumors why Hearn decided to steer Joshua away from Wilder towards the arguably far easier fight against the 6’2” Russian Povetkin. Some boxing fans believe that Hearn needed the Joshua vs. Povetkin fight for the kick off for his new deal with DAZN. It wouldn’t have worked if Wilder and Joshua fought each other in September, because that’s a pay-per-view fight, and DAZN is well known enough with the U.S consumers for the fight to bring in a lot of PPV buys if it had taken place in 2018. As such, Hearn matched Joshua against Povetkin this year.
Hearn says he still wants to put together the Joshua-Wilder fight for next April, but it’s unclear that’s the case or not. The way that Hearn is carrying on about Wilder needing to agree to the $15 million flat fee to get the Joshua fight on April 13, it suggests that he’s still not seriously interested in making that fight at that time either. In that case, Hearn will match Joshua against his Matchroom Boxing stable fighter Dillian Whyte in a fight for domestic consumption only. U.S casual fans have no clue who Whyte is, so it’s a horrible one in terms of attracting American fans to subscribe to DAZN to see that fight next April. Joshua isn’t well known either with U.S fans, so it’s a lose-lose situation all around as far as Hearn trying to peddle Joshua-Whyte to American fans on DAZN in the first quarter of 2019.
”It’s a mandatory,” Hearn said in attempting to justify his reason for matching Joshua against 38-year-old Alexander Povetkin instead of Wilder in September. “If you look at the Ring Magazine rankings, it shows Joshua, Wilder, Povetkin. So if you can’t fight number 2 [Wilder], then fight number 3 [Povetkin], and this is a very difficult fight against Povetkin. Everyone is saying this is a banana skin. Everyone is saying this is an easy fight. Apart from Wilder, this probably the toughest fight of Joshua’s career,” said Hearn.
The boxing fans aren’t buying Hearn’s rationale for matching Joshua against Povetkin for September instead of Deontay. As popular as Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) is right now, it’s difficult for fans to digest Hearn’s excuse for making that fight instead of the Wilder fight, as they don’t believe that the World Boxing Association would have ever stripped Joshua if he chose to fight Wilder instead of Povetkin. The sanctioning bodies give leeway to champions to face other world champions in unification fights.
If Hearn wanted the WBA to clear the way for the Joshua-Wilder fight, he likely could have easily done so, and the fight fans would have had the much bigger fight that they desire between those two champions. Joshua fighting the 40-ish Povetkin is a disappointment to the fans. They don’t see Povetkin as a credible opponent for Joshua no matter how much Hearn drones on about how the Russian fighter is the number 3 heavyweight in the division. The fans want Joshua vs. Wilder, period, not Joshua-Povetkin, which is a horrible mismatch.
”I needed a partner [DAZN] that was going to give me the budget and give me the fights to put together a great stable of fighters,” Hearn said about him recently signing an eight-year deal with DAZN to have fights streamed into the U.S. ”We’ve already signed five world champions in a couple of months. We’ll still get those one or two marquee names that we needed. We’re only just getting started. As a fight fan, DAZN at $9.99 per month, you get a month free; you get 16 U.S shows, 16 of our UK shows, all of the Bellator, all of the World Boxing Super Series for less than $2.50 per week. It’s a no brainer, but we’re only getting started,” Hearn said.
Hearn has signed some good fighters like Demetrius Andrade and Artur Beterbiev, but the fight cards that he’s put together leave a lot to be desired in the view of a lot of boxing fans. For example, Hearn’s October 6 card on DAZN has former 2-division world champion Jessie Vargas facing Thomas Dulorme in the main event. That’s a disappointing fight, as Dulorme has already been beaten a number of times when he’s stepped up against better opposition. Duloreme lost his last fight against Yordenis Ugas. Vargas, 29, is coming off of a 12 round draw against Adrien Broner last April. Vargas couldn’t even beat Broner, who is not one of the major players at welterweight. The rest of the card is woeful at best. Here are the fights that boxing fans can expect to see on the October 6 card on DAZN in Chicago:
– Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Johnson – Beterbiev is a good fighter. Johnson is an unknown with casual fans in the U.S and he likely is going to get banged out almost immediately by Beterbiev in this mismatch
– Daniel Roman vs. Gavin McDonnell
– Jarrell Miller vs. Tomasz Adamek – This is possibly the worst fight on the card, as Adamek is 41-years-old and badly past his best
Hearn’s October 20 card on DAZN isn’t much better. That one has a good main event between WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and Demetrius Andrade, but after that, the card drops off the cliff with less interesting matches that appears to be mismatches. Here’s what Hearn has thus far for his
October 20 card on DAZB from Boston:
– Billy Joe Saunders vs. Demetrius Andrade – main event
– Tevin Farmer vs. James Tennyson – co-feature bout and it’s looking like a mismatch of epic proportions
– Kid Galahad vs. Toka Khan Clary – Who?
– Katie Taylor vs. Cindy Serrano
– Danny O’Connor vs. Tommy Coyle – O’Connor, 33, is the guy that recently had to pull out of his title fight against WBC light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez after he ended up suffering dehydration while attempting to make weight. It was a fight that was expected to be a horrible mismatch
– Scott Quigg vs. TBA
– Nial Kennady vs. TBA
– Mark DeLuca vs. TBA
”People are trying to step up and compete with us,” Hearn says about other U.S networks competing with DAZN. ”It’s great for boxing, but they need deep pockets otherwise they’re going to fade very quickly. This is an endurance race. The value of DAZN is incredible. The fights we’re going to be putting on our incredible. It’s going to do really well. Love me or hate me, I’m going to be here, the last man standing. As a fight fan, make sure you make the right choice and that’s with DAZN,” Hearn said.
It’s going to be hard for Hearn to be the last man standing with DAZN unless he signs a heck of a lot more fighters with talent, and unless he puts on much better fights than what we’re seeing so far.
”I have a funny feeling Canelo [will beat Golovkin] but we’ll see,” Hearn said.
Hearn’s prediction on the Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez 2 rematch for September 15 runs counter to what a lot of boxing fans are saying. They believe that Canelo, who has lost a lot of muscle, is going to get run over by Golovkin. I mean, Golovkin looked like the better fighter of the two in the first fight last September, and that was with Canelo being huge and muscular. Now that the 5’8” Canelo is back to his small self, he’s going to have problems with Golovkin’s natural size and punching power advantage.
