By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn says he’s made some significant breakthroughs during for the Anthony Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder negotiations. Hearn hopes to have the deal done before Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) defends his World Boxing Council heavyweight title against Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs) on December 1.
Hearn is insistent that the Joshua-Wilder negotiations be done by the tie that fight takes place.
What Hearn says is progress in the negotiations might not be seen in the same light by Wilder’s management. It seems that Hearn still hasn’t come up with an offer that is agreeable to Wilder’s management. The previous offer is the $15 million flat feet that Hearn offered to Wilder.
That offer is seen by some fans as pitifully low for a fight that could bring in over $100 million. If you do that math, Wilder is getting a 15% cut compare to Joshua’s 85%. Joseph Parker received a better split than that for his fight against Joshua last March.
“Progress is significant in the fact we are talking. In terms of actual progress, it’s small,” Hearn said to skysports.com about the Wilder vs. Joshua negotiations. “Maybe it’s a breakthrough, they’ll come back. All we want is for their team to come back if they don’t like the offer and tell us why not, so we can try and make it work. By just saying, ‘no, we’re not going to talk’, how do you even have a chance to make the fight?”
Hearn missed a great opportunity to make the Joshua-Wilder fight for September when he failed to give Wilder’s management a date, location and a rematch clause for the fight. Wilder’s management were said to have agreed to the $15 millon flat fee for the fight with Joshua. The only thing that they needed was a date, location and rematch clause. Wilder’s co-manager Shelly Finkel says Hearn never gave him that information, and the negotiations fell apart. Hearn suddenly put together a deal with Joshua’s World Boxing Association mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, and said he would try and make the fight with Wilder for April 13.
Hearn seemed to be confident he could make the fight. However, Wilder is no longer willing to agree to the $15 million flat fee. He wants a 50-50 split, and that’s something that Hearn doesn’t want to agree to for some reason, even though Joshua will likely make more money than he would if he defends his IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles against Dillian Whyte.
Hearn must be kicking himself to this day for not making the Joshua vs. Wilder fight for September when he had Deontay’s team agreeing to the $15 million flat fee. Hearn looked like a rooking by not making the deal with Team Wilder at that price. Joshua would have made a massive amount of money for that fight if Hearn had simply pulled the trigger on the deal. By not making the fight, you can argue that Joshua will be losing a small fortune, because he’s not going to get Wilder to agree to a $15 million flat fee for April 13 or later in 2019.
Wilder’s price tag is going to shoot through the roof if he whips Fury on December 1. We’re probably talking about Wilder going from accepting a $15 million flat fee for a fight against Joshua to becoming the A-side.