By Scott Gilfoid: Anthony Joshua confirms that his No.1 choice for his April 13 fight is WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder for his next fight on April 13 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) battled hard on Saturday night to defeat former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin (34-2, 24 KOs) on Sky Box Office PPV in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. The fans didn’t know what to expect from Joshua in the fight, but he came through in flying colors after getting hurt twice by Povetkin in the first six rounds. Joshua knocked Povetkin down in the 7th and then stopped him.
Joshua says he wants he fight, and his promoter Eddie Hearn says he wants he wants to try and negotiate it.
“April 13 is what I’m really interested in,” Joshua said to skysports.com. “My No 1 would be Wilder. That’s it. Let me not talk about No 2 or No 3. Wilder, that’s it.”
If Joshua wants the fight against Wilder, he’s going to need to be more fair-minded when it comes to divvying up the money that mega-fight with the unbeaten American will bring in. Only offering Wilder $15 million for a fight that could bring in over $100 million isn’t going to get the job done when it comes to negotiating the fight. Wilder will likely be transparent about what is being offered to him. So if Hearn and Joshua are still offering only $15 million, then the fight probably won get made.
It’s very important that Joshua get his next fight scheduled quickly for April 13. With Hearn having booked the huge Wembley Stadium, he needs to have a big name delivered fast so that they can start marketing the fight. Matchroom fighter Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs) is standing by as the No.2 option for Joshua and Hearn if they can’t negotiate he fight with Wilder.
Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) is scheduled to fight Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs) on December 1 on pay-per-view at the Staples Center in Los Angeles or the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. Deontay Wilder needs to win that fight for him to be the No.1 plan for Joshua on April 13.
Hearn is still stuck on Wilder taking the original $15 million he offered him without sweetening it to make it a 50-50 deal. Without Hearn bumping Wilder’s pay up, the fight might not get made. Hearn keeps repeating the deal that Wilder agreed to for a fight against Joshua for September, but Hearn chose to have AJ face Povetkin instead.
“They agreed to a deal, we signed the contract, they didn’t, so we had to take a mandatory challenge,” Hearn said to skysports.com. “If they don’t want to fight, they don’t want to fight.”
Hearn is sounding like he’s going to take A-side approach to the negotiations with Wilder. That’s what I was afraid if. If Hearn wants to make the Joshua-Wilder fight, he would be talking a lot differently than he is right now. I guess I can’t blame Hearn. Look at it from his perspective. Joshua is his meal ticket. If Joshua gets knocked cold by Wilder, the UK money is going to dry up quickly because he boxing fans aren’t going to want to pay to see him fight in his numbers if he gets exposed by Wilder. Joshua almost got exposed by Wladimir Klitschko last year.